The Zephyter Story: Part I: Look Unto Eternity
by Zephyter0
Summary: Story of a group of transuniversal warrior/explorers as they hop from game world to game world. Follows P.O.V. of Faren Zephyter, the leader. -A bit extreme for T- Rated for violence, language, and alcohol. Mostly O.C.s. PART 1 of 3- CHAPTER 9 is up.
1. Chapter 1: Gremahan

Foreword

Everything changed after they started bridging universes. People were no longer limited to one life. They could live many lives. War was assumed to happen, and there had been rumors, but there was no proof of amassing armies. In the matter of space technology, it could currently get us to three stars in all the universes thus bridged. These were at the time twenty. Interestingly enough, these universes all had incredible differences. In advancement, energy types, even the basic structure of the laws of physics. Some people were adept at harnessing the natural energies of these universes. These energies had interesting effects, from effective "Magic", to the ability to control elements and even fly. "Magic" manipulation was considered a true gift, as it was the only energy that worked in almost any universe.

CHAPTER ONE…

I walked up to the town of Gremahan "The city of night". Dusk was settling over the hills and bathing everything in its inky, silken darkness. The little town was lit up by streetlights, providing enough illumination to find a hotel by, preferably one with low rates, but I had amassed a small fortune, so I wasn't too worried. Olevov, a well off gambling fool of a blue mushroom dotted toad wearing a full suit and carrying a glass dragon adorned staff, Moses, a very calm looking, simple-souled koopa with former hammer bro training that still wore the standard uniform and carried a really heavy hammer, Plats, a distraught boo with an eye ring around his cat-like left eye, and my best friend Mainad, a green yoshi with a small cape on his back and a device on his arm called the E.V.A.P.S. walked with me.

As we walked up the deserted main street, pale yellow lights leading the way, I had a singular goal in mind until I saw something like a motion blur outside one of the buildings. It happened outside the circles of light cast by the lamps over my head, so I couldn't make it out, but I thought I saw a hatch open and something move out the left side of a building and fall.

"You go on ahead", I said to my companions, "I want to check something out."

"Okay, we'll meet you at the nearest inn." Said Mainad, and they all walked on.

Now, I'm no fool, as I'm sure you know, but I am a very curious person, and so I went to check it out, which was not the brightest idea in The City of Night as I am sure you conclude as well. When I got there, I had to squat down facing away from the vent to see anything at all, let alone what I wanted to see. It was a man, maybe, I really couldn't tell at the time, but I knew that it would die unless I helped it, because it was bleeding badly from its neck and the back of its head.

I felt a small gust of air, and realized that someone had opened the hatch behind me, and a click told me of the cocking of a small caliber pistol.

"Don't move", said the man behind me.

"Easy enough", I replied.

"Drop your… Sword? For a second I thought you were a threat to our operation.", Said the man behind me.

"You'd better believe it.", I said.

"Wha-", the man began, but I cut him off.

"Put the gun away, turn around, go back inside, and tell your boss not to mess with me.", I said.

I stood up and drew Demonscar.

"Now why would I-", he began, but this time was cut off by Demonscar's blade at his throat.

"I'd do what I'm asking, after all, It's not too hard now, is it?", I said

I had finally gotten a good look at the man, he was wearing a black jacket, white sweatpants, a black cap, and a white t-shirt with a red R on the front. Obviously from team rocket.

"Alright, but-", he said, but was a third time cut off.

"What?", I asked threateningly.

He pointed at the thing on the ground and said, "That comes with me".

"No, It doesn't, and if I find out that someone followed me, you will become a sword swallower all the way to the hilt of this sword. Understand?", I barked at the, now shaking man.

"Y-yes… Okay. D-do you have a message for my superiors?" he asked.

"Yes, whatever this thing is, it means something to them, and they tried to kill it, so I'm assuming it means information about something you don't want people to know about. If you are killing people to achieve your goals, you count yourselves dead now and save yourselves the trouble of even trying to escape. Do you understand me?", I calmly whispered to the man.

"I-I-I'll-I… I'll just go and tell them then, does that mean-", He said, a fourth time cut off by me.

"Yes, it means you should get out of my sight, get out of this operation, get out of the town, possibly the province, because if you don't and you were a part of this operation, I will make sure that you personally get the same treatment as this thing. AM I CLEAR?", I roared the last part at the man.

"Yes.", said the man.

"Name?", I said.

"Edward Dimeol", Said the man.

"If that is a lie, and I find out who you really are, you should run.", I said.

"I know.", Said Dimeol.

He ran back inside after that, through the air vent. I picked up the poor creature lying behind me and dragged it into the street, now desperate to find a hotel to maybe save this creatures life. I dragged its sorry hide to the nearest place that I could find, the Up and Inn. I walked right up to the counter, dodging around tables, attracting way to much attention for my own good. I dropped myself across the counter and asked, "How much for a room for two?"

"I would say for you and _that_would be $200 a night.", said the barkeep.

"Here, take it.", I said after I slammed the money down on the table.

I grabbed the card-key and ran upstairs to my room. I threw the thing that I was carrying onto the bed facedown, dropped my pack onto the counter, flung it open, and got out the last of my medical supplies. I had a lot of work to do, first off I had to stop the bleeding, and worry about the bigger problems later, I picked out my bandages and scalpel, this was going to be a long night. I started with the head wound. I first bandaged up the neck, the cloth soaking until red immediately. I reached for my scalpel and made a vertical incision from the base of the head to the middle of the back of the head. I put on the last pair of sterilized gloves and got to work using a direct nerve stimulator to repair severed nerve connections, one, two, three…

One-hundred thirty-eight, done. Okay, when I was finally done with that, I cauterized the incision closed and bandaged the head. I moved on to the neck wound, watching out not to move the head in any way, and, making sure that it wasn't too serious, cauterized the cuts and set a restraining harness around the neck, this one wouldn't be waking up for a few days, so I felt that I would be able to get it off before it wakes up… now… What was it?... well, for one, it was NOT human, nor anything I'd ever seen before to be sure. It had many of the qualities of a pokemon, such as a snout, three toed paws for feet, yellow and navy blue fur, hands with four claws on them and so on, but it also had long green hair, a bipedal body type, and a human basic body frame It hit me right about then. It was a Quilava… Anthropomorphized? But how? I took off my surgical gear, noting that I needed to get more. I looked out the window. The sun was just peeking over the horizon. 'Chalk up another all nighter for me.', I thought to myself, looking out there... I thought of Mainad… Olevov… All of them… and I fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of busting glass, and I looked around to find the Quilava-thing trying to escape from the harness. It was spewing small jets of flame and kicking at things

"Stop!", I cried at the Quilava-thing

"Let me go!", It yelled back. It had a high, slightly nasalish voice, so it was a girl.

"Calm down, it's obvious you have been hurt by people in the past, right?", I asked.

"No, I had escaped, I don't want to go back to that place!", She said.

"I'M NOT GOING TO HURT YOU, I JUST SAVED YOUR LIFE!", I bellowed.

She stopped thrashing after that and said, "But… You're human…"

I replied, "Yes, I am, but what are you?"

She started to speak and got this out, "I was a girl, but then these people came upon my friend and I in a field, and one of them had a gun… and my friend fell, and it was all so confusing. After a while spent in a cave, I was brought to a room, knocked out, and when I woke up, I was this…".

She started to sob, and I softly said, "Who was your friend?"

"Albert Derring.", Came the reply.

"I see, and your name is?", I asked with as much compassion as was humanly possible.

She looked up at me and said, "Icial…"

My jaw dropped open and I asked, "What did you say?", completely shocked by hearing this.

"I said my name is Enflare… Why, was that wrong?", asked Enflare, who was very puzzled.

"Nothing, I… Never mind…" I said, still puzzled, "So… Why did they try to kill you?"

She replied, "They didn't… What the people did to us… it was all of the torture that made me try to escape, I made it halfway when it felt like a thunderbolt smacked the back of my head, then there were some pains from my neck, but I just kept running toward the smell of fresh air, I felt the hatch door, I used my new hands to open it up, then I fell, and knocked myself out." She said, "I woke up here, and I still don't trust you."

"How about this… I get some blueprints on that building right over there and kill everything in sight?" , I said, really ticked off at this point, knowing what was going on now.

"I-I… I just want my friends to be free.", Enflare said, on the verge of tears.

"Okay, so a search and rescue mission… I can do that with minimal deaths.", I said, as angry as I could possibly be, "Look at what they've done… to you, maybe many others."

"… Okay." She said, "Let's get this done with."

"It's settled then.", I said.

Enflare asked, "What's your name?"

I flashed a quick smiled and turned on the spot for dramatic flair so that my cape swirled around and the sun was now at my back and was silhouetting my figure slightly, drew Demonscar, tilted my hand down and placed the tip on the ground so that the blade reflected light across only my face, and said, "Zephyter."

AUTHOR NOTES

Only comment this time is that I'm sorry that it took so long to get it posted. I had some internet trouble and I sincerely hope you can forgive my (no longer) barren profile.


	2. The History of Zephyter

OKAY, HERE WE GO…

Disclaimer: I do not own anything but the characters thus presented and some of the places. You will be able to tell which by the fact that you haven't heard of them.

THE HISTORY OF ZEPHYTER

I am Faren Zephyter, a human, a jack of all trades, and most importantly, the wielder of a blade called Demonscar. I was born in the year 2135, and was, at the time you see me in this story, twenty-four. My ancestors came from many different backgrounds, ranging from medicine to war. They also come from many different universes, ranging from the universe you probably know as the Metroid universe, to the kingdom of Hyrule, to universe 15, the Marioverse…

I feel the time is right to inform you of my past… you see, I was born into the family of a scientist who did work in genetics in universe 15. He was trying to create a man who could manipulate all aspects of all the universes. He failed miserably, instead, he had a child, which in the end turned out to be the very thing he least wanted… a man who can't manipulate ANY kind of energy. Over the years I developed skill in many mundane tasks most people would just manipulate away, and this led to greater skill in many things through practice. The lack of work near where I lived gave me time to learn to defend myself, mainly with my sword, nicknamed Crimson, as swords turned out to be better than guns in battles involving magic. Speaking of magic, as a further means of impressing upon myself that I would learn to manipulate something, I learned to weave spellsymbols to use what is called symbol magic. I met my good friend Mainad Gamrad in third grade, quickly realizing that he was a very minor magic manipulator.

After that, things were rather uneventful until Mainad and I turned eighteen, and on October 14th 2142, Mainad and I got in over our heads, getting involved with a bad fight. The participants of the fight were all lower class people equipped with chains, knives, and blades of all sorts. Us two ran into the middle of the fight while walking around town, we met a toad named Olevov Srite. We were horribly defeated until Olevov started muttering something under his breath… he seemed to be breathing new strength into our blows, for now, this new power enabled us to fight our way to the door and out onto the street where we decided that we would stick together and work as a team. Shortly after that, the three of us left our hometown and headed for the Universe gate. We were ready to explore a new universe on our own, and we were confident that we could handle ourselves. We were wrong.

We stumbled into an even bigger fight… a war between two neighboring planets... Hyrule and the Pokemon planet. Actually, it was just a border skirmish, but still… We joined a resistance group, trying to help, and were eventually beaten and used for testing new torture devices on… most of them failed (Thank the gods) but a few of them really, really hurt. Mainad got the worst of it. They tested their newest weapon design on him, literally. They wanted to see if the device that they proposed, the Elemental Vorpal Aligned Potent Semi-weapon or E.V.A.P.S., would kill the person it was attached to or not, so they tried the prototype on him… It is irremovable due to the fact that once it is attached to the base of your forearm, it will cause a cascading chain reaction of spontaneous accelerated molecular solution creation to occur, making sure to leave all colloidal particles alone, causing the real arm to slowly disintegrate into nothing and be expelled out the front, itself acting as the solvent to your arms solute… Basically it dissolves your forearm and spits it out the front, taking control of the blood flow and nerves to your arm. It induces the manipulation of magic, light, and darkness, but at a high price. Blood… lots of blood will be expended when it is used. The process of putting it on hurts like hell for three weeks, and using it weakens you, but you will be capable of so, so much while you are in possession of the E.V.A.P.S.

The scientists who tested the device tried to sedate him, and he apparently went under, but as soon as it was on his arm, he reacted lightning fast, calling upon the power given to him to fry everything in the lab, this probably drained him, but he kept going. This turn of events was what we needed to escape, for Mainad broke us out, unfortunately for me however, now Mainad had the E.V.A.P.S., Olevov had his magic, and what did I have? Nothing that could compare except for my skill at many things… most of them NOT fighting. I redoubled my efforts to train my fighting skills, determined to remain an important member of the group. I was afraid of being kicked out when we met a koopa named Moses who was traveling in much the same manner as we were. We joined forces and together we were an unstoppable force… (_yeah right_…) but that was a problem. I started becoming the weakest link. In a stroke of good fortune, Mainad proposed we leave the current universe. I hastily agreed with this and we found ourselves with a choice of where to go next, Home, the Fantasy universe (A.C Final Fantasy.), or any other ones… I chose fantasy.

This proved to be the luckiest decision in my life, for as we were headed to the universal gate of Fantasy, I spotted something big… I knew what it was from months of research on the subject, but I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a blade like no other, unmistakable because the guard with a gust of wind engraved in it, the blade with three circles carved at the bottom, connected by three lines to two circles surrounding a triangle with the letter Z in it that had two diagonal lines coming out of it leading to the point of the blade where there were three circles arranged in a triangle and connected by lines, with another circle in the center that was also connected to by lines from the outer ones. It was most certainly an impressively made weapon, and it was mine. I mouthed the name of the weapon to myself… 'Demonscar', and immediately ran over to it to find that it was, in fact, the sword of which I thought… I only wondered how it got there until I saw the note attached to the blade which read;

_Descendent of which I know name,_

_I give this to you, have no shame._

_Take this which cost me life here and forever,_

_I pursued this blade when my body would never,_

_I fell into abyss for the chance,_

_To come to pass this circumstance._

_Until you laid eyes on this blade,_

_None could see it where it laid._

_Now the spell is broke and gone,_

_The last of me is finally done._

_Thank you my family, long forgotten,_

_Now, this blade may be well-begotten._

_Understand you the ways of fighting,_

_And battle using this weapon of smiting._

_Keep you peaceful, pacifist ways,_

_And you will find yourself unphased._

_Keep yourself in both these realms graces,_

_And you unlock the hidden places,_

_Try to understand it all at once,_

_You'll be no smarter then a dunce._

_But forget about your need to be,_

_And maybe then… you'll see me._

_Colonias Indigdinous Zephyter, 2050._

Needless to say, I was pleased by this turn of events, as I could most certainly keep up now. Demonscar was a blade that was imbued with three abilities, the ability to take the users fighting spirit and amplify it, meaning that whoever used this blade's talents would have his own talents amplified, it was talent sealed weapon, meaning whoever tried to steal the sword would find it of no use to them, for it won't kill it's true owner or use any of its abilities, and lastly, it also responds to stimuli in much the same way as the user, meaning that it increases its users potential in the same way that emotions do, leading to double increasing for anger, fear, and adrenaline rushes.

I wondered where Colonias got Demonscar until I realized the date on the note. I did some research, and found that he was born in Hyrule in 1652, meaning he was almost four hundred years old when he found Demonscar. I pieced together that part of the puzzle from the line _I _'_pursued this blade when my body would never_', theorizing that that meant that he pursued it after death, I went back to my notes about Demonscar to find that it was lost in the Death dimension in the year 400. Turning to my notes of the Death dimension, I found that there was a pit known as the infinite abyss in that dimension and realized that he probably pursued Demonscar in there. The only question that remained was how he got it out. Well, according to 'last will' laws of physics, this probably applied in the Death dimension, all things considered, he must have sacrificed his soul; the only part left of him, to move the blade to the realm of the living, into my arms.

After my research into my lineage was completed, we continued our plans to go to the Fantasy dimension. We were impressed by the amazing décor everywhere around us, as well as the amount of magic manipulators from the world which we were on… and then, in an explosion of technological advancement, the next age began… the age of three stars, and 20 dimensions.

As soon as that gap was bridged, I wanted to cross it, and we found ourselves in a world of chaos and disorder, as we now had roughly 50 visit-able planets, and almost no way of knowing what was on them. We joined up with a semi-military group on the planet of that was banding together to try to prevent transuniversal interplanetary war. Fortunately for us, war did not appear to be on the horizon, as a transuniversal alliance was formed, and, using the most advanced technology ever seen, a border dimension was formed… a stronghold for those of us who wanted peace… a working system of transuniversal government was based there, based upon the principal of peace between the universes. Unfortunately, this government only worked to keep peace _between_ the universes, not within them, so militaries were still formed, wars were still fought, and sides were still taken. Our little group was swept up in the madness of this time, rushing to aid the so called 'good' side in any war that broke out, until we decided it was time to head home. On the way, we met a former war-mate of ours, and he requested to join our group. We now had five members, Myself, Mainad, Olevov, Moses, and now, Plats, a Boo. It seemed kind of odd to us that we all had species ancestry from the same universe, but we let it go for now. You have to understand what happened next, as it is vital to what is going to happen.

During our travels, we had come across some small ruins. We traversed these to the center and stopped there, for we had seen a large metal ring in the center of the room, which was apparently used for time travel. We had no idea how it happened, but we ended up o the pokémon planet with no hope of getting back unless we found those ruins again, and since we were there in exactly the year 2008, we realized that, due to the fact that this was a time of internal turmoil and strife, we might as well help out a little. We had been there for three months when you saw us last, exactly the way I described us, and I was wearing the single most outlandish clothes… I know, a green jacket, red shirt with a humongous orange crystal on the chest, jeans, a scarf, a red cape with a yellow triangle covered in random black scribbles on it, and a wide brimmed red hat with five points on it, is definitely strange attire, but I like it. I had white hair covering my ears and heading down to my scarf. I also had really pale skin. I had my sword Demonscar, in all its glory. And I am now ready to relate my tale, spanning universes, to the world…

Authors note+

If you liked it, please comment, it not then stick around, cause it's gonna get better.

That's all I can say for now

+Zephyter0+


	3. Chapter 2: Shadows and Ghosts

CHAPTER TWO: Shadows and Ghosts…

Authors comment: Thanks to Kathlaida-Princess for being my biggest supporter

I sat with Enflare in a beautiful verdant field, the tomatoes and mushrooms were just about ready to be picked, and it looked like it would be a good, plentiful, delicious harvest. The last of the birds were settling down in a nest made of small twigs gathered from around the field that was perched in the leafy, swaying edge of the fifth branch from the bottom that was sprouting out of the midsection of an ancient, ample size oak tree. Its waving branches cast their reflections beautifully along the water when blown by the gentle touch of the warm, slightly calmly gusting evening breeze by the oblong pond off to me and Enflare's left. It was spewing cold, pure water into the air in a ten foot jet of shimmering diamond like droplets of liquid into the night. Those droplets either dissipated into the wind as they were spewed, splashed down into the clear pond below, watered most, if not all of the roses and bushes, or bathed the birds as they tried to ready themselves for the warm, summery night. The sun was setting gloriously over the hills, giving everything an extremely long, dynamic shadow towards the archway behind the two, as well as turning the sky pink and orange, dynamically lighting the clouds to the effect of a flaming sky. The air was noticeably humid, salty tasting, and warm, whereas the spray of the water from the fountain on the faces of both Enflare and I was both cool to the skin, and delightfully pleasant.

after obtaining some clothes for her, (not an easy feat, explaining why they needed to be fireproof was the hardest part I still needed to explain why I was using girls jeans and a girls tank top to fix my ceiling) I felt like Enflare might need to get back to nature. I felt that a little relaxation might do some good to ease her tortured soul.

I felt like shit. I knew that something very, very wrong was going on in this town, and I felt like I was somehow being used, manipulated by some malicious force from beyond. I was thinking this when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and saw Mainad standing behind me.

"Who's the-" Mainad started to say, but then he got a good look at her, turned back to me and said, "Not again! You attract far too much trouble for your own good".

I replied, "I found her by where I said I wanted to check something out. I saw something fall out of an oxygen vent on the side of a building and it was her, and by the way, we're out of surgical gear".

Mainad raised a proverbial eyebrow and asked, "How badly was she injured?"

As I ruffled through my pockets I responded, "Well, this is the siren class rifle round that I pulled out of the top of her spinal column. "

The bullet was about 7 millimeters thick and was tapered to a point. It had holes on the side that acted as noise makers, sounding like a high pitched whistle. If the bullet spun just right, it would make a song-like noise.

We moved back a couple steps and began to speak softly.

"What the hell was she doing?" Mainad whispered.

"Apparently she was escaping from an organization, she used to be human." I whispered back.

"What?" Mainad said, a look of utter shock was on his face. He got a little too loud.

"Anything wrong?" Enflare asked while looking over her shoulder.

"No, just a status report from the guys." I said back.

Enflare asked, "Who's your friend?"

Mainad stuck out his hand and said, "Mainad, nice to meet you"

"So, is everything ready Zephyter?" Enflare asked.

Mainad said, "What are you doing?"

I responded while pointing, "Raiding that building over there. See it?"

Mainad said, "I see. Well… Good luck with that."

"Oh, you are most definitely coming with us." I told him.

"Why do you need me?" Mainad asked, getting annoyed.

"Well… Just come okay?" I said, knowing that he didn't want to change the past.

"Fine. I'll come." Mainad said, "And I'll bring all the others."

Mainad left, leaving only me and Enflare. I leaned back against a tree and sighed, thinking to myself, 'this is going to be an easy fight'. I was wrong…

The building suddenly exploded in a blinding burst of bright colored flame, sending pieces of shrapnel and hunks of metal flying. I was momentarily dazed, and then I noticed a shadowy figure too indistinct to make out floating above the wreckage. I said, "I'll be back in a minute." to Enflare and turned around to see the whole gang running over to me.

Mainad was the first to get to me. He took one look at the building and smirked, saying, "Damn… either you work fast… or someone else wanted this gone."

I laughed nervously and gave Enflare a look that meant that I meant business. With a cold tone in my voice I said, "Enflare, I want you to find a safe place to lay low so I can find the one who did this."

Enflare nodded and ran off, and I said, "Up for a chasing a suspicious shadowy figure?" to everybody.

Olevov immediately asked in a sharp tone, "What do you need for enhancements in this case?"

I thoughtfully said, "Okay, well the figure was flying, so we need that, and a couple of protection spells couldn't hurt…"

Olevov said, "Right.", waving his staff in a circle, "Enchantment; Grants; Gravity; resist; complete!", followed by, "Conjure; force; mage armor!"

He slammed his staff into the ground and I immediately felt weightless. I floated upward on a whim and drew Demonscar. I felt the mage armor kick in, adding a little bit of drag to my flight but not inhibiting it too much. I waited for the others to fall in next to me and nodded, and then we were off.

As we floated over the wreckage of the building, I saw that, sure enough, there was a small indistinct blur. It moved, shifting just slightly, twitched, and started to back away slowly.

"I think it knows we're here…" I said to the others in a hushed tone.

Sure enough, it turned and ran, and we pursued…

Thank you for reading this story, this is still the opening, so death and carnage come later. REVIEW PLEASE! I like reviews.

+Zephyter0+


	4. Chapter 3: Of Man and Beast

CHAPTER 3: Of Man and Beast…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

We followed the figure west, across town, over the nearby forest, through a small mountain pass, and into a desert. The figure had flown for about two hours and finally stopped, setting down on the sand. I looked intently at it, and could tell it looked at us too. Neither of us dared to speak, and it looked like we were going to be standing there for a long time.

Finally, Moses spoke up, saying, "Thank you for destroying that building and saving us the trouble of having to do it ourselves."

The figure returned his comment, "So you want to kill the half breeds too…"

I was disgusted instantly by that comment. I said, "Why the hell would we want to do that? They've never done anything to us, and I don't care what you think, killing people is wrong!"

The figure was indistinct, so I couldn't tell what it was doing, but I thought it looked at me. It stood there for a long time before finally saying, "So, you're not trying to kill them…" he turned around and said, "If you interfere with us, you will be killed, follow me if you dare."

He took off, heading further into the desert. We followed, passing over a small settlement and heading out to a small rock in the middle of nowhere. We set down as he did, me on the far right and Olevov on the far left. He turned around, spoke a few words under his breath and calmly drew some kind of weapon, probably a gun, though it too was too indistinct to make out. Plats' eye ring acts like a boomerang, and is super sharp. On top of all of that, it allows him to see whether something is magical or not, and how to defeat something that is. He whispered something to Mainad who in turn whispered this to me, "Humans in this world at this time didn't have magic except in the most simple of forms. This man is magically enchanted, meaning he has some kind of help… Considering that there are only a few humans from this time capable of this, it has to be either time travel or-" At that second the sand erupted upward blocking our vision, and an incredible roar was heard, drowning our yells of surprise. It could mean only one thing. Legendary help. As the sand cleared and our vision returned, we looked at each other uneasily, and then we all looked at the spot where the ground had erupted forth. Nothing was there. I had a flash of realization and flew up right as a massive frozen wall had raced toward me. I looked down at the others in fear that was quickly assuaged because Olevov had reacted fast and countered the ice with a fire spell. I turned to fight, only to gape at what was standing in front of me. "Holy Shi-" I got out before being blasted into the ground by a paw to the face, which hurt like hell for a second, but felt better quickly. "Suicune." Olevov sternly said, "It makes sense. It is a protector of nature, and what they did to Enflare was certainly unnatural, making her an unnatural creation… my only question is, why didn't it attack me while I was saying this?"

A booming voice echoed through our minds, "YOU! All of you are not natural to this land, and you", it said, looking at me, "Are definitely not natural. Nor is your blade…"

"You're damn right I'm not, so fuck you!" I shouted at Suicune, thinking to myself, 'how could _Suicune_ have done this… I remember learning of the end of the pokemorph era, but I didn't know why they called it that, or how it ended!'

I lunged forward at Suicune, Demonscar swinging into the ground, and sword-vaulted off of the handle into a frontflip, pulling it out of the ground behind me, using the spin to bring the blade crashing into the ground where Suicune's neck had been just a second before. Suicune had disappeared, and reappeared behind me, which I was ready for, whipping around and catching a little bit of Suicune's shoulder with the tip of the sword, actually causing the legendary to yelp in surprise. I stared Suicune in the eyes, and it looked at me, before psychically saying, "Enough of this… you harmed me because I underestimated you and only because I underestimated you. I won't make that mistake again." Suicune roared, sending a shiver down my spine and making my ears cry out in protest, and a small group of pokémon and humans appeared out of portals, none of them were shrouded, so I could make them out perfectly. There were now four humans, an ivysaur, two flygons, and a gardevoir on the opposing side. The humans had shotguns, and could get through simple spells like Mage Armor only at extremely close range, so the pokémon were what really worried us. Suicune dove into the ground, laughing and thinking to us, "These ones will take care of you nicely…"

We turned to face them and they turned to us. I noticed that the pokémon looked uneasy and unhappy to be doing this. I remembered a saying that I heard a long time ago… There are no bad pokémon, only bad trainers. I looked over at Mainad and said in a commanding tone, "Aim for the humans first. Kill them for what they've done. Pass it down the line". Once everyone was informed we turned and charged at the enemy, not expecting it when they flew up into the air and calmly dodged our attacks. Olevov and Plats reacted quickly, but Moses, Mainad, and I weren't so lucky. I was smacked in the face by a block of psychic energy, causing my nose to bleed slightly. I got up and saw Mainad and Moses being suspended in midair by vines coming from the Ivysaur. Just then, a man fell out of the sky and landed next to me. I saw burn marks on his face and cuts all over his body that were causing him to bleed profusely. I immediately stood up and flew over to Moses and Mainad, cutting through the vines that held them. I then flew up to the battlefield in the sky, seeing the two remaining humans and the two flygons trading blows with Plats and Olevov. I jumped into the fray, immediately running Demonscar down the length of one of the men's arms, clearing a strip of flesh away, causing him to leak blood in drops onto the battlefield below. He yelped in pain and I saw my chance, running him through with the sword. It was a good thing they didn't know that their shotguns were ineffective because these men were strong, and if they punched, it would have hurt. I caught Olevov freezing another one of the men solid with an Ice spell and Plats throwing his eye ring straight through his neck while I was locked in combat with a flygon, parrying its blows and countering, only to have my blows in turn countered back at me to be countered again. I eventually saw an opening and the flygon took a heavy knee shot to the stomach followed by a one-two punch combo the face and a backflip kick that sent it spiraling into the other flygon who were then both fried by a lightning spell that came from Olevov, who finished them. I turned my attention to the last of the humans and said, "Olevov, Plats… Kill him."

I flew down to help out Moses and Mainad, noting that they stood back to back and were on the defensive. Moses had his hands full with the vines and seeds from the ivysaur, and Mainad seemed to be locked in a magic-VS-psychic battle that he was losing because of the drain on his body. I leapt to help Mainad, but Moses yelled in pain and I turned to see several cuts appear on his skin from the seeds. I immediately leapt to help him, but failed to do so and ended up in the stream of seeds getting torn up into pieces of agony instead of him. He gave a shout and smacked a vine with his hammer, running off to the left of the Ivysaur and smacking it with the same. Mainad was now standing back to back with me. I could feel the sweat on his cape and I was sure he could feel mine. Mainad grabbed my shoulder and all of a sudden we reversed positions, him spewing fire at the Ivysaur and me fighting with the psychic type. It was a much better situation for Mainad, and I was no longer getting cut, so I swung my sword over my hand and went into my standard practice routine. I used the momentum from the flip of my sword to get another spin on the other half of my body, channeling this momentum into a spinning jump ending in a downward thrust which got me to the gardevoir by dodging the psychic blasts it sent at me. I was about to cut it in half when the unexpected happened. It stopped attacking and looked around, first at me, then at the ground, then off to the left. I looked off to the left with it and saw the last of the humans lying on the ground, cleaved in two and dancing with electricity.

I knew right then and there that there was no reason to fight. Their forced loyalty to the men was severed with the men's deaths. "STOP!" I shouted, and everyone looked at me.

I looked at the gardevoir, and held out my hand. It looked back, surprised… after a minute… it shook it. I looked it in the eyes and realized it was true. The gardevoir had no malicious intent, only the person. I looked at Olevov and said, "Can you use a translation spell?"

Olevov nodded and said, "Language: comprehension: universal." and slammed his staff into the ground.

I turned back to the gardevoir and softly said, "We are not your enemies. We freed you from them and would like you to know that we mean you no harm."

The gardevoir looked at me kind of funny and asked, "Why are you talking like us? Your lips are moving, but different sound is coming out…"

I smiled and let myself relax a bit, immediately wishing that I hadn't because the pain of the cuts from the seeds doubled when I stopped tensing my muscles. "Healing… perhap-" I stopped, and looked at the gardevoir in surprise. Its eyes were glowing and it was levitating slightly. I felt my cuts seal up and my strength return, and I felt that the gardevoir deserved an answer for healing me. "It's magic. Everyone understands everyone under this spell." I said, "You're welcome to stay with us if you wish, but I wouldn't. If I was you, I'd find a place to lay low for a while. They'll be too busy following us to come after you". I turned to leave, but the gardevoir grabbed my arm.

"What's your name…?" She asked.

I smiled, gave a curt not, slammed by blade into the ground, kicked it sideways, spun it around in my hand and said, "Zephyter"

The gardevoir smiled at this showing off and said, "I'm Locria, and I will come with you if you will allow me."

I turned to the Ivysaur, who was watching intently and said, "And you?"

"My parents never gave me a name, and these people just called me Z3… the third member of the Z team… the ones you just defeated." Z3 said, solemnly adding, "-on my life I will repay you for saving me from them. I swear it."

I nodded and looked back towards Gremahan. I looked at Olevov and said, "Well, we need to go back for Enflare, so let's get these ones airborne and we'll be on our way."

As we sped off into the distance I looked back over my shoulder to the setting sun. everything was layers upon layers of orange and pink, and I started to lag, my mind caught on the setting sun when Mainad asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah." I replied, nodding. I caught back up, ready to keep moving, but I still remember that setting sun, and I don't think I'll ever forget it.

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Miloctra: Thank you for the comment on my naming ability, and if you ever need anything named, don't hesitate to ask.

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And so, the fighting commences. What will come next…? Wait and see…

+Zephyter0+


	5. Chapter 4: Mob Tactics

Chapter 4: Mob Tactics

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We finally made it back to town a couple hours later. I landed on the spot where we left Enflare and immediately noticed the mob gathered around in a circle over by the mouth of a cave at the other side of the park, which could only mean one thing. Trouble. It was dark, so we couldn't quite make out what had been going on, but we saw the classic angry mob staples… Torches and weapons. I drew Demonscar and ran up to the back of the crowd, shouting, "What the hell is this all about!"

A man at the back of the crowd wearing a pair of jeans and a light blue shirt turned and looked at me, stared at the sword in my hand for a moment, and said, "We cornered some morphs in that cave over there. I saw three of 'em myself. They looked like a rag-tag group, but still, a morphs a morph after all, right?"

That threw me over the edge. I was already pissed that Suicune was leading the terrorist groups against morphs, as well as at being stuck in the past, so I really didn't need anymore pissed-offness today. "GODDAMMIT!", I roared, grabbing the man by his shirt, "IS EVERY FUCKING PERSON IN THIS WHOLE SHIT-FOR-BRAINS TOWN A RACIST BASTARD?"

I picked the man up and threw him into the crowd front of me, he screamed and fell into about five people, bowling them all over. I yelled at the ones giving me dirty looks, "That's it, everyone dies!". I started to raise Demonscar (the design on which was currently glowing blue), but was halted by a hand on my shoulder, as well as a vine around my waist, a hand grabbing my arm, and a wall of psychic energy. I tried to push through anyway, but the combined strength of Olevov, Moses, Z3, and Locria was by FAR too much for me. I continued trying before turning around to see them all standing there, all of them shaking their heads in disapproval except for Mainad… then I realized, where was Plats? I looked around to see a small translucent ball of spirit matter fly through the wall of the cave and I realized that Plats had a better idea. I took a step back and also realized that swearing and throwing somebody at a crowd was probably not a good idea, because now, an angry mob was probably going to attack us. The glow from Demonscar faded with my burst of rage, and my mind cleared… for now. I moved back and said to Moses, "Time to stall…"

Moses stepped forward and I wondered whether or not they thought he was some kind of pokémon, after all, how many koopas do you see walking around the 2008 pokémon planet? He stopped moving and said, "Hi… uhh… look. We don't want any trouble, but my colleague… He can't stand discrimination in any form, so I can see a conflict in your views, as you peop-"

"Who the hell are you!?" one of the men in the crowd shouted, a woman in the middle of it continued, "Yeah! And what are you!?"

"Uhh… Okay. My name is Moses…" Moses said, "And I am a koopa."

"A what?" Another man said.

"A koopa… uhh…"Moses seemed stuck on how to treat that question, so I offered up under my breath, "A pokémon from a far off land… try Orre."

Moses muttered his inaudible thanks and said, "A koopa is a pokémon from the far off land of Orre. I know talking pokémon are extremely rare, but I can."

"What about the others?" someone off to the left side of the crowd asked.

Moses replies, "All from Orre."

Just then a shouted, "Hey! Something's coming out of the cave!" was heard. I saw a glint, which was obviously a signal, and a small jet of flame, which was obviously to say that Enflare was alive.

Mainad held the E.V.A.P.S. up and a glint shone off it for a moment. He was replying. Plats rushed out of the cave and Olevov quickly said, "Illusion: Mist: Violet.", slamming his glass dragon tipped staff into the ground.

I watched as Plats, looking surprisingly like a Ghastly, came out of the cave carrying a small amount of a powdery looking substance. I nodded in his directing and he did a loop-the-loop, dropping some of the stuff on the crowd. The crowd, which, up to this point, had been looking at Plats, noticed what the substance was once one of them dropped to the ground. "Sleep powder… Classic." I said. The crowd tried to scatter, and a few of them sought shelter in the surrounding bushes, but it was far to late for them, as Mainad used the E.V.A.P.S. to stir up a wind, directing the powder in streams though the crowd and eventually disbursing it throughout the field of battle. It was actually kind of beautiful to watch, and would have made an excellent overlay to a ballad of some sort. Once the crowd was out, Mainad dissipated the wind and let the powder come to rest on the ground. I was about to cross there when Mainad said, "Don't run, you'll stir up the deposits and pass out like the rest of them."

I nodded and walked slowly across the field and over to the cave, stopping to congratulate Plats on a job well done. I walked into the cave and down a long passage before coming to a fork. Deciding to go left because of a faint light I saw at the end of it, I walked for roughly a few feet before I was practically smothered in a thank you hug. "THANK YOU!" Enflare practically yelled into my ear.

"You're welcome." I calmly replied, "Now, how many survived?"

Enflare said, "Five of us lived, and one of us is missing."

"Who's here?" I asked, more intrigued by species than names.

"Well, our cell consisted of me, a wartortle named Froth, a pidgeot named Skyknight, a mawile named Glaze, a zangoose named Ark, and a (A.C.: I couldn't resist…) lucario named Oneshot. Glaze is the missing one." Enflare said, "They're all dying to meet you. They're at the back of the cave, c'mon!:

I followed Enflare to the back of the cave and what I saw was incredibly bizarre. Froth had a shell covering most of his body, and his legs ended in clawed stubs. His ears were exactly like those of a wartortle, but he was considerably taller. His hands had four digits on them, and they all tapered to a point. He had no nose, and his head was roundish. He basically looked like a large wartortle with odd eyes, a thinner shell, and brown hair.

Skyknight looked incredibly graceful, even in her new form. Feathers sprouted off both her shoulders, in fact, down to her elbows resembled a wing. Her head had slicked straight back, jet-black hair fading into feathers on her neck. She had a bird-like tail sticking out of the bottom of a black tank top and a pair of loose fitting sweats. She had an otherwise normal human body. When I looked at her she smiled.

I caught sight of Oneshot next. He had the paws of a lucario for hands and feet, and his body was completely covered in lucario's fur. His muzzle was short for a lucario and his ears were too, but his tail looked the same. His chest spike was rather small too, and I noticed that he had no hand spikes.

Ark was a fearsome sight to behold. His claws were long, longer than a normal zangoose's. he had a head completely resembling that of a zangoose. He was wearing khakis and no shirt. He fur was everywhere except in rings around his upper arms. He was sleeping in the corner, his head rested up against a small cushion.

A short while of talking it over later, I decided it wouldn't be a problem for them to come with us, after all, what have we got to lose? We walked outside the cave and Olevov slapped his forehead, Moses sighed, plats shook his head, Locria smiled, Z3 nodded to me, and Mainad looked energized. I told the morphs to mingle with the others, and I walked over to a tree and dropped my pack. Using Demonscar as a stationary, I drew up three lists of supplies we would need. We had plenty of money, and since everyone in the town was out cold, we could pilfer it and simply leave enough to pay for it. I split the items up into three categories, Critical, Helpful, and Would be nice.

Critical;

Food

Kindling

Medical

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Helpful;

Tools

Matches

Repellant

Tents

Gas

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Would be nice ;

Drinks

Axe Snacks

Hammer Weapons

Books

Paper

Pencils

Gas Games

Flashlights Cards

Portable generators

Use your imagination

I handed a copy of the list to everyone involved and said, okay. Now that everyone's met, let's get down to business. Enflare, Olevov and Plats will cover Critical. Froth, Skyknight, Oneshot and Moses are on Helpful. Mainad, Ark, Z3, Locria, and I are on would be nice.

I walked around for a bit, peeking in different shops and diners until I came to a small game store. I pocketed some cards and a chessboard with men, leaving 11 in their place. I moved on and grabbed a scythe from a medieval store, a bottle of tequila, a few bottles of club soda, a couple dozen energy drinks of various kind and size, a few interesting books, a handheld battery charger, and a small gas powered generator, racking up a bill of roughly 260 in only Would be nice. Luckily I had a pouch containing essentially 5000 worth of precious gems. I walked back to where we were supposed to meet to find everyone else already there. I dropped the scythe (which I was carrying) and my pack, taking out the items and saying, "Well, I found a heap of stuff."

Mainad looked at my pile and said, "Yeah, you sure did."

Olevov said, "No kidding! Look at all this great stuff."

"Anyone here know how to fight with a scythe?" I asked.

"Locria does!" Z3 chimed in.

I whirled around and said, "What!? Locria can fight with a scythe!? This I gotta see."

Everyone nodded their approval, and Locria stepped forward

I handed the scythe to Locria and she smiled, saying, "Take a few steps back, I haven't done this in a while."

Locria began to twirl the scythe for a moment and suddenly swept it under her, leaping and twisting in midair to bring the scythe sweeping low. She canceled the maneuver by shirting her weight in midair and landing on her right hand. Allowing her legs to swing down, she pulled into a cartwheel with the scythe spinning in front of her. She pushed off the ground once more and was airborne, a spinning scythe floating just below her as she floated above the stick, her eyes glowing. She dropped into the middle of it, catching the staff on her right leg, and spun downwards, spinning the staff around her leg, and, jumping once more, she spun the staff to the end of her leg where she gave a slight kick and sent it flying backwards, curling into a ball to roll the scythe off her back and onto her arm, where she spun it back and forth like twirling a staff, only with a blade on the end. She finished off by catching the end of the stick and balancing it on her right hand, eventually flipping it over and planting the end, not the end of the scythe, but the end of the stick, firmly onto the ground.

I applauded, as did everyone else, and we had gathered up the supplies, about to leave, when Mainad said, "You know, they're going to find out where we're going sometime right?"

I know that. I also know that you can't change the past, so if they come with us, then the came with us. I want you to know that I take you seriously into consideration with every decision that I make. I have a lot of respect for you."

As do I, but are you sure?" Mainad asked, a look of concern on his face.

"Yeah. I'm sure." I nodded and picked up my pack, "Besides, You know me. Even if I did manage to kill off the universe, I'd just push the proverbial random button on accident and fix everything, right?"

"I hope so…" Mainad said, obviously forcing a smile. Something was bothering him, and I couldn't figure out what. 'Time enough for that later' I thought, 'Tomorrow is a new start, we'll see what happens."

We picked up our gear and headed out of Gremahan just as the crowd of people began to awake, I was never to return there, and I felt good about it. We camped in the mountains north of town and after a few hours all of us were asleep, finally, there was rest.

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Sorry for the somewhat long pause in chapters. Kathlaida-Princess and J.C. Onyx, thank you for being supportive.

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+Zephyter0+


	6. Chapter 5: Day of rest and recuperation

Chapter 5: A day of rest and recuperation…

Authors pre-note: This took forever to write due both to the fact that my laptop (where I write these) was broken, and because I had writers block for two whole months. It was really annoying, and I hate myself for not getting it out there faster. I apologize. The length of this chapter is 10000+ words. Read it in one or three sittings.

--

From what I gather, Mainad was the first to wake up. He woke Olevov, who shouted, "Oh sure! No one gets any rest!"

That was what woke most of us up. I was one of the last to awake, and as I fluttered my eyes open, drifting slowly into consciousness, I yawned slowly and took in the morning scene. There were trees on all sides, and a small rocky path leading down to who knew where. The twelve green tents that Moses picked up sat in a small circle around the campfire and most of them were unzipped. The morning was chilly, and several people had blankets wrapped around them. The air smelled like fresh pine from the campfire of the previous night as it drifted about in slow lulling breezes. Everyone was already bustling, doing their business and getting ready to go. Ark was still asleep however, his head on a small pillow and his back arched off of a rock, which couldn't possibly be comfortable. Z3 was running around, saying good morning to everyone, and asking something to which everyone I saw would shake their heads no, then explaining something to them. Skyknight was sitting on a log picking up her things, wearing an outfit that she obviously grabbed. It was composed of a loose green T-Shirt and tight jeans, topped off with hiking boots. Locria was up and at em, running around and trying to find something with a fiery look in her eyes. Mainad was leaning against a tree on the far side of the clearing, obviously troubled, with Plats next to him, who looked concerned for Mainad, and the pair were talking in hushed tones. Olevov was reading a book called "Art, Science, and Life", and had a very puzzled expression on his face. Moses, with a concentrated expression, was dueling Oneshot, who looked shocked to see Moses parry his lightning fast attacks. Moses seemed to be winning that one, as he was the only one landing hits. Froth and Enflare were standing over by the edge of the clearing talking, neither of them looked like they needed to be disturbed right then. As a matter of fact, they looked distraught, like someone had done something very wrong, oh wait, I guess someone did (stealing their humanity). I painstakingly stood up, grunting, and walked around for a bit to ease the stiffness in my legs as well as get my mind off of our predicament of being trapped in the past. When my knees were loose enough to allow it without letting out a groan of protest, I kicked a few logs from the campfire, breaking the ashes up and scattering some to the wind. A stray ember leapt from the fire and fell to rest upon the ground. Locria was still looking for something, so as she came near I grabbed her shoulder and quizzically asked, "What are you looking for?"

She quickly replied in a happy, bubbly voice, "Oh! I was just looking for the scythe. I wanted to practice."

I nodded and smiled, sarcastically saying, "Well, it's probably where you left it."

She rolled her eyes at me and ran off, her arms trailing behind her. I turned and nodded at Olevov, who looked up from his book for a moment. His eyes gave away he wasn't really paying attention, but he quickly nodded back at me and shifted positions, raising his leg up to the log and half laying down. Mainad noticed I was awake and walked up to me with an obviously forced smile on his face (At which my smile faded), saying, "Good morning Zephyter. I bet you think we should get mov-"

"No." I cut him off, quickly deciding what to do, "Let's take a day off. I know we want to get home ASAP, but I think we can afford to take a day off to let the new ones adjust to being with us."

Mainad smiled for real this time and said in a relieved tone, "Finally. I was worried you were shouldering the responsibility of getting us there entirely, and that that might interfere with your thought process. I think that's a wonderful idea."

I nodded and my smile renewed. I turned back to the others and said in a cheery tone of my own, "Hey guys! Today's for relaxation! Have a good time."

Everyone laughed and cheered. Olevov raised his book and said, "alright!" . I wondered what I would do with my free time…

/MORNING\

I soon after decided to go down the small aforementioned path. The light from the sun shining softly through the overhanging trees made for an excellent view of my surroundings, as everything was bathed in pale, glistening morning light. I made my way slowly down the sloped rocky path, stumbling but one time upon the ground on which I stood. It was firm enough to walk on without being too firm, and I noted that parts of it fell away with every step I took, and eventually there would be no path left. Eventually I emerged near a softly rippling stream, blue as the morning, with the sun glinting off of it. Walking forward, I took in the scene. I noticed the waves of the stream lapping at the shore, rising slightly to a crest, then crashing down to the hard rocky shore. I saw the enormous, overhanging, mud-brown cliff face on the other side and immediately decided to steer clear of the far bank, as it looked unstable. My fears were proven true in an instant, when a small bunch of loose rock fell, shattering into pieces upon the rocks below. I jumped backwards to avoid the splash, and caught a look around a corner. I saw the perfect perch to sit on for a while set into the overhang, and went for it. It wasn't easy to get to, but after a stepping stone jumping maze, followed by an arduous climb up the side of a large moss covered rock, I found what I was looking for, a small indent in the cliff. I climbed up and brushed off some sediment to get a place to sit. I sat with my bottom half on the wall and my top half leaning forward. I felt a gust of wind pass my face, and I delighted in the cool crisp morning air rushing by, salty tasting, as we were near the sea. That was something you wouldn't find much of in the civilized areas of the Transuniversal Alliance. My expression hardened, remembering times past, when I was interrupted abruptly by Ark, who came practically out of nowhere, smiling and asking, "Mind if I join you?"

I smiled back and decided that it was time for some company, saying, "Sure, come up here, I'd be glad to share this morning with you."

"Thanks, I appreciate it." Ark said chummily, his tail twitching, and he sat down next to me, not even bothering to wipe off a seat.

"So… you like climbing? What do you do?" I asked, turning over to him.

Ark frowned and said, "Ark… was not my name before. You see, we took on names to suit our new forms. My real name is Grant. I used to be normal…

"…I don't know what you went through, but I have already vowed to myself that I will do anything to defend your rights." I said, staring Ark in the eyes, "You are innocent, and no one has the right to steal your humanity, and I am not going to stand for it… In fact… I want to tell you the truth about our history. We're not from Orre, or anywhere else on this planet, nor this universe. As a matter of fact, there are currently 20 universes bridged in the Transuniversal Alliance."

"Huh, go on." Ark said, "I believe you."

"Really, because if you don't, say it." I replied.

Ark nodded and said, "I do. I believed in the theory of transuniversal transport for as long as I can remember."

"Good, so I don't have to go into the nature of Transuniversality." I said, "Okay. So, in addition to being from another universe, we are from another time, around 2262."

Ark nodded as if to say 'go on…'

I took an incredibly deep breath and word streamed out, "Well, me and my companions essentially formed a group of transuniversal warriors, as it was discovered that magic did exist, just not many people were born who could harness its potential. As soon as two universes were bridged, that changed, and magicians began to be common. The religious implication issue came up, and eventually the issue was settled. Claiming that their gods were real, every universe was realized to possibly have its own gods, and soon, the Transuniversal pantheon was formed, consisting of Mew, Arceus, Giratina, Din, Nayru, Farore, and many other lesser deities. There was a small hassle trying to spread energies of different sorts to different universes, but that cleared up with the widespread use of magic. Along with that, there was another issue that came up, and that was that in every universe there were ruins. Not just ruins, but the same type of ruins, laced with every kind of energy known in all of the universes. Magic was the strongest, and through every fire-singed corridor and every broken-weapon filled pit, not a single corpse was found. Not a trace of DNA, or a spirit of any kind. Eventually the language was deciphered, and the society was discovered to be called The Tempest. Working your way down to up on the social ladder, it started worker. Soldier, Adept, and Acolyte came next. Third rung was General, Mercenary, Scholar, and Minister. Fourth rung was Warrior, Mage, and Priest. And at the top of the normal ladder were the Magelord, the Warmaster, and the SemiDivine. Those three are a Mage, Priest, and Warrior elected to rule. Outside of the social circle there was apparently a group of Tempest that worked for the good of all, these were called the Demonbleeders. They were an order of 1000000 Tempest, roughly 1/80000 of their population. They wielded powerful enchanted weapons and wore powerful armor, and in addition to being the most powerful warriors, they counted among their ranks some of the most intelligent and wise Tempest there were. They kept the peace, attempting to uphold the ideals of their society to their best. Eventually the society began to fall apart, and corruption and moral degradation took its toll, resulting in the collapse of the entire empire, and the death of every tempest. The last recorded tempest writing was set in the citadel of the Demonbleeders, and it said 'I go to join the other four, but do not fear, when the blade is awakened and returns home, I shall return.'. We have absolutely no idea what it means, but it was dated to just before the dawn of Hyrule, and the first human kingdom. Anyway, our little group found some Tempest ruins in another universe, and were shocked to accidentally activate some sort of portal. We saw nothing wrong, and so we decided to look through. Of course, someone did something that wasn't according to plan, and when Olevov, curious as he is, stuck the end of his staff through, a grinding sound was heard, followed by a loud pop, and a crashing noise, and all of a sudden a pokémon appeared, but not just any pokémon, Mew. It was an incredible thing, as not many people get to stand in the same room as Mew, but that was short lived, as A psychic voice through our minds said, 'You must help me, for we have the same goals. You want the right thing, and so do I. Save us… please.' I was so shocked that I honestly have no idea what happened next, and the next thing I knew, I was on the pokémon planet again, and we were in the wrong time. About to give up hope, we remembered the relative location of the tempest ruins on this planet. Our last hope lies there, and you can come with us if you want, as that is where we were headed."

"Wait, wait, wait… hold on, what are we doing?" Ark asked.

I sighed and said, "You didn't get it?"

"No, I got it, but," He said, leaning his arm over his knee, "Aren't you afraid of messing with the timeline?"

"Let me tell you something about timelines, " I said in a scholarly tone, "Even if you go back to the past to change something, you can't change it because it's already happened, if that made any sense."

Ark shrugged and said, "I guess."

I waited a bit, wondering whether to say it or not, but decided it was better to just get it out there, before saying, "I remember reading of the end of the pokemorph era, but I didn't know…"

"WHAT!?" Ark exclaimed, eyes suddenly wide.

"All the morphs… die." I said, "We'll see if we can't remedy that. You can feel free to come with us."

"We… die?" Ark said, "But, we're free…"

"People aren't as tolerant as some people want to believe, and after Hoenn came under-" I said, kicking myself for saying it, "Never mind."

"What happened to Hoenn? That is the country where morphs are free, right?" Ark asked.

"I- Are you sure you want to know this?" I said, "It's not pretty."

"Yes, now tell me." Ark said, getting annoyed.

"It came under attack, and eventually fell to an army of anti morph terrorists, much like the ones Z3 was telling everyone abou-" My mouth fell open as I remembered a sentence in one of the books I had researched on the subject: 'The blue one came, and with his forces, he eradicated the center of the morphs, and Hoenn was consumed entirely by war.'

I realized in that instant that the Blue One was Suicune, and his forces were the ones from earlier. Hoenn was consumed by the Pokémon Planet civil war. I had the chance…

"What?" Ark said.

I gasped and snapped my head to the right, saying, "We need to kill Suicune."

"What!?" Ark exclaimed, "How and why do we do that!?"

"Well, I don't know how, but I think I was wrong, and the past can be changed," I said, "But he is the leader of the anti-morph group."

"You couldn't touch him, he's a god!" Ark exclaimed.

I remembered hurting Suicune. "I did." I said.

Ark looked skeptical and said, "When?"

"When we fought in the desert, I anticipated a move of his and counterattacked, actually drawing blood." I said, Demonscar pulsed at this and it seemed to react to the tale of our battle.

He shook his head, grasping it with his claws. I sighed, and he said, "You actually injured Suicune?"

"Hells yeah!" I exclaimed, "What, you don't think I could beat you?"

"Heh, I've got some skill… wanna try?" he said.

"Right now!" I said.

"Okay…" He nodded, "Down there."

We got into position, and we began. I opened with a charge and thrust, but Ark backflipped out of the way and rolled to the right, shoulder rolling behind me and catching me in the sides with his claws. It hurt, but didn't prevent me from donkey kicking him in the chest, sending him backward onto his back. I then backflipped over him and stuck my right foot under his head, and saying, "Get up, you have to do better than that!", I flipped my foot up, pushing him into a sitting position, I didn't anticipate his next move, and fell to the ground under a flurry of white stars as he unleashed a 'Swift' attack. I picked myself up only to be 'Mega punched' to the face, and laid out flat on my back. I laughed and got up, straightening my hat. I smirked and said, "My turn." I turned and jumped, Demonscar once again glowing, ten feet vertically. I double-frontflipped, my sword beneath me as I came down. Ark dodged, and I spun to face him. I charged, and he tried to leap out of the way, but I grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the ground. Clearing the distance, I was surprise attacked again, only this time with a throw that took my momentum and channeled it upward, a 'Seismic toss'. Unfortunately for him, I managed to grab him and pull him up with me, and, spinning in circles, I performed a kamikaze dive bomb, head first, Ark first, and at the last second pulled out, flipping over and pushing off of him with my leg, landing gently on the ground while he blasted through the surface of the water, splashing everything. I ended Demonscar's glow and waited on the shore for him to get out. Eventually he dragged himself to the shore and flopped onto his back, wet fur soaking up sand like a sponge in the ocean. I laughed at the sight, and got a spray of water for my troubles, as he dried himself off like a dog, shaking all of the water off and onto me. I laughed when he poofed up like one too, and I remembered that that didn't used to happen to him, and he had lost his humanity for no reason, and I felt like a dick again. He produced a comb from one of his pockets and began brushing himself, his fur reacting well to its efforts and calming down quickly, the sand running its way out of it in no time. "Do you mind?", Ark asked, "I still can't reach my back."

I nodded and combed down the hair on his back, feeling slightly better, and examined the wounds on Ark and myself. I had a cut on my side, a bloody nose, a few bruises, but was otherwise in good shape. Ark had a big bruise right on his chest and a cut on his back from my tackle (He probably hit a rock), but he was- and then I saw another bloody spot, on his back, and I remembered what had happened in the air, and how badly that must have hurt. I said, "Wow, you're really hurt man, Here, take this." I produced a couple of vials of red liquid from my pack, and handed one to him, "Red potion. Old Hylian secret, heals most wounds…" With that, I drank, and so did Ark. The potions worked their magic fast and well, and soon we were back to our old selves again, "Thanks," Said Ark, "You're a good friend. I will accompany you to the end of time."

With that, we began to talk, of life… and soon, morning was over, as was the afternoon, and thus began…

/EVENING\\

I walked back up to the camp, now knowing much about Ark's past. For example, how had once been a professional trainer and had once placed second in the Jhoto league alongside his prized pokémon, which, cruelly ironic, was a Zangoose. I found the camp deserted and waited to see if anyone would show up or come out of hiding or whatever, but nothing happened and after a few minutes I was very bored. I began to walk away when I saw a small glint reflect off of something metallic underneath a fern at the base of the bushes off to my left and, upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a small copper coin. I picked it up, feeling both rough texture along the edges and smooth grooves set into the face, which was so dirty I couldn't make out who it was. I lightly flipped it off of the back of my hand and a swellow, which just happened to be in the area at just the right moment to snag a coin for its nest, unexpectedly swooped down gracefully and, spinning in mid-dive as it grazed my hand, snatched up the coin, flying off to the west, when a meowth just happened to meander through and see the swellow fly off. It jumped up and bolted into the forest after the swellow, and I smiled to myself, sitting back on a bark-stripped log and thinking about how much, for all our success, conscious people like me were like animals. That meowth never stood a chance of getting that coin. Not only could it not get to the swellow, let alone catch up to it, but the swellow would beat the meowth in a fight too. It just went to show that, like animals, people will keep trying for that thing they can never get.

I thought all that as an extremely overexerted looking Mainad walked up carrying half a tree's worth of wood and groaning from the work. He grunted heavily and let them fall out of his arms a little bit to the right of the fire pit. Spinning around to face me and grinning in a lighthearted manner, he dropped his entire body, in an overdramatic display of uncerimoniousness, upon the log next to me, laying his right leg up over it and his arm on that. He looked at me for a minute, every muscle in his body tensed up, before doing anything, and then he relaxed his position and leaned backwards onto the log, crossing his legs and taking a breather. Eventually he nonchalantly said, "You know… even throughout all we've been through, I never would've thought we'd be in this situation…"

"Really?", I said, jokingly adding, "Having to make fire?"

"No… escorting what is quite possibly the last group of 'morphs'", Mainad replied, a serious, but not annoyed tone in his voice. "And being asked some task by Mew, a task which we don't have any idea how to accomplish. As a matter of fact, we don't even k-"

Mainad cut himself off by bursting out of the blue into an almost insanely happy giggle fit, which erupted into a roar of laughter. All of this simply died down into him chuckling and smacking his leg with his fist, which looked like it probably hurt from how hard he was doing it, but apparently not. I laughed too, getting the irony and the sense of desperation of the situation, but the utter hilariousness, insanity, and nonsensicalness of it all was enough to simply overwhelm the other parts. Mainad, for the first time in about half a year, reached his arm up over my shoulder in an expression of kindness and friendship. He said, still laughing, all airs and all sense of seriousness he had now gone, "Its times like these where you have to do one of three things… Laugh, cry, or go insane… This seems like the best option."

Mainad squeezed my shoulders together in a friendly hug and said in a happy tone, "C'mon, why don't we go have some fun!"

I jumped up, not seeing this opportunity presenting itself again for a while, and energetically replied, "Of course! Where to?"

"While scouting out the area I found a rather large lake that way," Pointing a little to our left, Mainad said, "We could hang out down there."

"Okay, let's go." I said, glad to be able to have some fun with Mainad as hadn't happened in a long time, "Lead the way my good friend!"

He walked a little bit ahead of me and we got a dialogue going as we made our way around the area, underneath a canopy through both the lush wooded area and the rough craggy areas. We eventually emerged near a large lake shimmering with sunlight and dancing in the wind, completely surrounded by forest, large enough that ripples and waves lapped the rough rocky shore. A few pidgey circled overhead and a breeze blew gently over us. I saw a small group of Stantler on the other side of the lake, and a few magikarp were in a feeding frenzy in the middle of the lake, swarming what looked like bread crumbs, which made me question whether or not we were the only ones in this mountain range right now. Mainad and I walked slowly along the shore, talking about small things and sharing our thoughts over the past week. Even though we had been traveling together, we hadn't really spoken in a while. Walking along the shore, I saw a small door set into the ground, and nudged Mainad, nodding in the direction of the door and saying, "Look."

Mainad said, "Yeah, I see it. Wanna go explore it?"

I said, "Sure!" and walked over to it, not really paying attention to what was happening but still noting it had both rusty hinges and a tarnished silver handle that looked like it needed a good polishing, and had no keyhole, so the door couldn't possibly be locked. I knelt down, leaning all of my weight on my right leg, and tried to grab the handle but my hand shot back and into my mouth when I grabbed it because of the intense heat that was in the handle, which burned the hell out of my right hand. Shouting, "OUCH!" as I lost my balance and toppled over onto the rocky ground, inflicting much pain on my side because I fell on a rock, I arduously picked myself up off the ground and said, "Mainad, can you ice this thing for me?".

"Sure thing", Mainad replied, "Hold out your hand."

I did as he asked, and he held out the EVAPS, swirling it around my hand, slowly at first, but at an increasing rate. By the time he finished, it was moving superhumanly fast. It started to glow blue, and it gave off flakes of ice for a minute, chilling me to the bone, and then he stopped, and my hand felt entirely 100 better. He grabbed my hand with the EVAPS, which was freezing to the touch and somewhat slippery, and heaved upward, picking me back on to my feet. I turned and kicked the knob clear off the door. It went about five feet before ricocheting off of a rock, sparking as it did so, and plopping down into the lake, rippling the water and making a steaming patch for a moment, but eventually it cooled off, cracking open and making a bubbling sound because it was hollow. When it finally came to rest, Mainad balled the EVAPS into a fist and smashed it straight through the wood of the door, splintering the section of it into nothing more than toothpicks. He opened his hand, and the rest of the door exploded, showering us both with small strips of wood which quickly vanished into puffs of smoke. "Look, I made a door!" Mainad said jokingly, adjusting his hat and making a 'lead the way' gesture.

"It works!" I joked as I crawled through the space in the hole, immediately being showered with sparks from a small, but powerful solar powered electrical generator to my left's fried cable, which was obviously what was heating the door handle. I walked down into the dark cave not knowing what to expect. Seeing only grey stone and the occasional bit of rusted iron lying about, I relaxed a bit and signaled Mainad inward. He came down the tunnel right as I stepped forward into a chamber lighted by nothing more than several rays of the sun, which were reflected off of a crystal in the center onto the walls of the cave, which were coated with some form of glorious bright blue gemstone, casting an even coating of an omnipresent glow upon everything in the cave that wasn't in the shadow's of me or Mainad. The chamber branched off into three passages, and it had smoothed out stone walls and a dirt floor with grass around the stone in the center. I looked down the left passage and saw a small rounded off stone about two inches thick set into the ground and a mound of somewhat recently overturned earth that hadn't been packed down very well. I called over to Mainad, saying, "Hey, I think I found something… C'mere."

He came over, glanced down the hole and held forth the EVAPS, calling out a small white light. It shone into the whole hole well, revealing the morbid and gothic writing carved into the center of the stone…

-REST IN PEACE-

CHARM,

BELOVED FRIEND

AND CHARMANDER,

GOOD TEAMMATE,

NEVER FORGOTTON…

And etched into the stone beneath it with a much more primitive tool, probably a chisel…

Y- O- U -- H- A- V- E -- B- E- E- N -- A- V- E- N- G- E- D.

Exactly as it was written there, so is it written here.

"Oh… Well this absolutely sucks…" I said, suddenly aware of what it was…

Mainad sighed and said, "That's just great. Of all the things we could have found, we managed to find the most depressing one. Go fucking figure. Our lives in a nutshell right? A grave… of course it had to be a grave…"

I noticed a small glint on top of the grave and said, "Come a little bit closer with the light."

He nodded and leaned in, and I looked for the glint again, and there it was. I picked it up, intent on examining it, but almost fell over when a three fingered skeletal arm popped out of the grave, with a small, what looked like gold, ring around one of the bones. Mainad pointed at me, laughed, and said, "You afraid of a little ghost arm there Zephyter?"

I turned away and, in a voice capturing nothing less than very essence of an archeologist making a documentary, said, "I wonder who made this elaborate tomb?"

Mainad shrugged and said in a both solemn and serious tone, "I don't know… but I think we might have been better off not having disturbed this place. It's not like we've done anything wrong, but I think we should leave. You _do_ have at least some respect for the dead right?"

"Yeah… Although I don't feel bad. After all, I didn't know them. I wish I could have known them, but I didn't. Ah well, it's sad for them that we broke the seal of the tomb, but it's not our problem. Besides, someone will probably fix it, that dirt was recently overturned." I said. Mainad rolled his eyes at my lack of respect, but I couldn't help myself. I turned to Mainad and said, "C'mon… Let's leave these ones in peace… Forever."

Mainad nodded his approval, and we started to crawl back out the exit tunnel. I left first, feeling an immediate temperature difference as I stepped outside into the sunset. The orange clouds streaked the sky, pulling the sun away. I turned around and helped Mainad out of the pit, pulling him out of the tunnel and back onto his feet, his cape swirling around behind him as I did so. Mainad smiled at me and said, "That was fun… More than we've had in a long time… Thank you."

He signaled to Olevov, who was sitting on the beach and looking out into the lake, and said, "I'll catch you later."

"Yeah. See ya Mainad." I said, glad to have been able to do this with him.

He wandered over to Olevov slowly and they greeted each other with equal enthusiasm. After a high five, they walked off away from me, and Mainad turned and waved one more time. I waved back and saw that the sun was setting quickly, as the color was already going away quickly from the sky. I turned to the left, heading off toward the sunset, and headed back to camp. I mulled over the afternoon in my mind as I walked, wondering if everyone else had as much fun as I did, or if they had hum-drum, run-of-the-mill days.

I walked into the dense woods, ducking left and right around trees while maintaining an almost straight shot to the campsite, and all sound faded into nothing and the darkness of the forest shrouded my motion. It was downright eerie to be in the woods at this moment. I looked around, but not a sound was heard, nor a sight seen. I started to panic, and I grew apprehensive, beginning to wonder if this was the beginning of some kind of a nightmare. All of a sudden, a brilliant blast of bright blue energy flew right by me, blasting me off my feet and spinning me around seven times in midair while launching me 20 lateral feet before I slammed, fully frontal, into the ground, smashing my chest on the crystal in my shirt and knocking the wind out of me. I looked up, and saw it speed off into the distance, until a ring of it formed up in the desert. A few seconds later, a massive column leapt out of the ground, and if it was visible from here, it had to be at least five thousand feet tall. A tremor ran through the ground underneath me, knocking me again to the ground. I looked up for a while at the appearance of this monolithic dreadnaught of a tower, before deciding on a plan of attack. That tower was a threat to my new team, and no matter what, we must do what we can to destroy whosoever rules over it. I made a wild guess that I was not the only one caught in that energy wave, and that at least Mainad, Olevov, and probably Ark, felt it too. I, uneasily, filled with unrest and anxiety, tuned around once more and headed towards the camp. Others will probably want to know what happened, and I saw firsthand.

"Time to quell the panic. Then, most likely… Time to fight." I said to myself, forcing one foot in front of the other in a slow march towards where I came from. The darkness and quiet were gone from the forest now, and the flying and bug types were making their noise, rustling leaves, singing, and in general, moving around. I stood still for a moment and listened to the noise of the forest, and the colors of it settled in as my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the quickly coming night. Stars started to appear in the sky, and I resumed my slow, albeit steady, forced march towards the camp, as I was downright exhausted, and could have dropped down asleep right where I stood. I could tell, my energy had been sapped a bit by that wave… Ah, who am I kidding, it wiped me out. I was about to collapse, but I could not, and would not leave my friends waiting and wondering where I was, so on I went.

I saw the campfire right around when the sun finally set completely, and as I stepped into the clearing, and was greeted by wide eyes and heavy hearted faces, I knew morale was at an all time low. It was already over in a few of their minds, but not in mine. I absolutely KNEW we could win this fight, and I was not about to give up. My energy slowly returned to me as I rested, and I decided to do something to cheer all of them up…

Thus the tiring, spirit breaking hell of an evening in which I saw the obelisk rise was concluded… And so began…

\\\NIGHT/

I had decided to tell everyone of our plans… they didn't take it too bad, a few wows, and a little proof had to be shown in the form of the EVAPS being looked at underneath a microscope (that someone oddly enough had grabbed) to reveal the nanotechnology latent within the blood pumping system. This seemed to make everyone anxious, and I knew that this alliance was becoming an uneasy one for most of us…

The campfire danced in the small amount of wind blowing eastward towards the shore, casting odd shapes and chaotic shadows that also danced upon everything within its light. I stood on one side while all of the others sat upon the far side from me talking amongst themselves. I had set up a small easel and placed a rather large canvas on it detailing the new plan of attack.

"Ahem" I began, and everyone quieted, "I realize that there is no possible way that we are going to make it all the way up from the inside, so we need some form of air bubble, Olevov?"

"I can do that" he nodded while saying.

"-which will effectively take Olevov out of the fight from trying to maintain it, and the rest of us will have to defend against enemies trying to destroy the bubble on the way up." I continued, pausing to let this sink in.

A few muttered, "go on"s came a few seconds later, and I shivered, feeling the cold of the night start to sink in, chilling me to my bones.

"This battle will be taking place in outer space, so heat will be a factor, which is going to lessen the amount of time Olevov will be able to maintain the bubble, correct?" I asked.

"mmm-hmm, about 25 minutes I can maintain it." Olevov nodded once more.

"-giving us less time to do what we have to do and making it overall less likely that any of us will survive this fight." I said, my mind working hard at planning all of the contingencies necessary to pull this off.

Everyone seemed to get the message, so I didn't push the issue, but I wanted to make sure they all knew that this was kind of a do or die situation, so I did say one more thing, "We could die now… We might have died five minutes ago, and the odds on the outcome of this battle would still be about the same."

Everyone still seemed to get it, so I decided to move on to the issue of morale, as that was really my only plan, and I said, "As a way of promoting trust in the abilities of everyone here, I would like to see what we can do. Everybody, showcase your combat styles one at a time now please, Mainad can sit this one out because his style requires him to waste valuable blood on his attacks.:

Immediately Locria and Olevov both jumped up, saying, "I'll go first!"

I cocked my right eyebrow and nodded to Locria and said, "Haven't we already seen your style?"

"Yes, but I am no longer rusty." Locria said, winking and smiling at me.

"Huh…" I said, "Olevov, a lot of us have seen yours firsthand, so…"

"Fine, fine, I get it." Olevov said, sitting down, annoyed, but not too much so.

"Locria, the stage is yours." I said, plopping down on the ground next to Mainad.

She hopped up and said, "Okay everyone, here I go."

She held out her hand, and the scythe flew into it. She softly and silently stepped around to the other side of the campfire and positioned herself in the basic pose, mountain, of yoga, with her hands at her sides facing outward, her head down, and her legs spread to the width of her shoulders. She started slowly spinning the staff off to the side of her left hand without touching it, spinning it for about, if not exactly, 10 seconds, slowly increasing in speed. She then gave off waves of psychic energy, and the staff started to spin around her at an alarming rate, then, all of a sudden, 5 phantom scythes appeared out of midair, all spinning around her as a shield, then suddenly breaking off and flying upwards, joining together into one scythe and dropping down onto the ground before she picked it up with her right hand, swinging it around her wrist and then jumping up, spinning in midair until she flipped and landed on her arm, the scythe twirling around it, and her body suspended above it, her eyes glowed for a moment, and the scythe stopped, flipping into another direction and twirling off the arm she held sideways, before again, stopping. This time, she jumped again and floated, flipping over until she was right side up and taking the scythe down below her legs. It spun still, carried on by psychic energy, as she floated above it, eyes glowing, giving off waves of her energy and eventually stopped the scythe, sent it flying, planted it firmly in the ground, and balanced on it on one leg while she shot off several spheres of force, which, with another thought and what looked like a painful wincing from her, grew spikes and flew around the campsite erratically, or at least in a pattern too complex for me to figure out, although it looked like Mainad had his eyes set on one. Suddenly, she stopped and the scythe started to wobble, she looked like she was losing control over all of the objects, like she couldn't keep track of all of them. Knowing what would otherwise happen, I jumped up, frontflipped over the fire and caught her in midair as she lost her balance, tumbling down toward the scythe which came up from below. I dropped, rolling across the ground, the only effect being that the crystal on my chest scraped the end of the scythe. I stopped myself, looking down at Locria, who was crying, "Oh no… are you okay?"

I smiled and said, "Don't worry, it's no big deal, just, try not to kill yourself… We need your help."

She looked up at me, smiling, before saying, "Okay… I guess I just pushed it just a little bit too far huh?"

"Yeah." I said, rubbing my chest from the bruise I knew it left, "Just a little."

"Oh, here, let me get that for you." Locria said, healing me instantaneously, "That probably hurt, didn't it?"

I groaned, smiling "Oh yeah… It hurt, but it's not a big deal."

She looked confused for a moment, so I shook my head, saying, "You don't get it do you?"

"No," she said, "I don't"

"Okay… Here's a pointer in the right direction…" I pointed to the logs off to where I was sitting's left, to Olevov, Mainad, and Plats, and said, "What do you think we were before traveling companions? Are you any different?"

Her eyes lit up, and her eyes watered up, tears of joy welling up to them as she finally got it. I held out my hand, and she took it. I helped her up, and she said, "Friends… something I haven't had since I was captured... It's been the longest time…"

She hugged me gently, and I whispered, "Uhh… okay… I guess this is alright…"

She blushed slightly, realizing her mistake, before quietly stepping back.

I turned to the small audience of Locria's performance and said, " She's alright everybody. No big deal."

I walked back to my seat, and she sat down next to me, as it was the closest spot from where we were. "Olevov?" I said, nodding, "Your turn."

Olevov jumped up, exclaiming "Alright!", before walking up to the same spot Locria stood in

As Olevov wandered up, Mainad leaned in close and said, "What was that all about?"

"Just to let her know she's not alone anymore. She has companions now." I whispered back, "Now shush, the flashy one is about to start."

Mainad chuckled, and Olevov began.

Olevov stood in a casual pose, leaning against a tree, when suddenly, his hand caught on fire. He jaunted around the clearing with a flaming hand, like it was nothing, before the fire froze solid, then melted into water. He raised his hand and took a deep drink, lowered his hand to his side, and blew out a stream of air towards the ground that caused the earth to shatter and rush up until he caught it all and brought it down with his staff, scattering the debris along the ground. Turning, he held up his staff and yelled, "Aerial combustion: Dynamic spectrum: Starburst!"

At that, fireworks literally sprang from his staff, blasting into starburst patterns all over the sky, blue, green, red, they all went up in smoke without a single ash nor a spark to light them. Mainad whispered something behind my back, and I think that is the only reason why the forest patrol and the pokémon rangers didn't show up, because I got a vague impression that he was masking Olevov's display from anyone outside of our little group.

Olevov continued, before taking his staff and pointing it towards the other end of the campsite three times, causing a large BANG!, BANG!, BANG!, as three massive explosions come out of nowhere, he spun the staff, and a sphere of air cocooned him, shielding him entirely before exploding outward in a deafening roar, transforming into ice particles and dropping to the ground.. He spun and pulled his hand into a gun like formation, BANG!, only this time to the campfire I was unfortunately seated right in front of, so I was showered with sparks, which hurt, but left no physical damage. I frowned, but said nothing. Locria was too busy healing herself this time, so I didn't bother her. I turned back towards Olevov, who looked like he had finished for now, as he was smugly bowing and walked off to the side, staff in hand, other hand in pocket, on fire.

"Who's next?" I asked, "Moses? Plats? Froth?"

Moses said, "Fine, I'll go next. only because no one else wants to though."

"No one has to do this, you know." I said. It was not a question, as I knew he knew, and he knew I knew he knew.

Moses stepped up to the plate, carrying his massive freaking warhammer. He swung it up into the air before he brought it crashing down into the ground, the force of which smashed a hole roughly ten feet deep from the compression of the earth and the conservation of the momentum. He chuckled loudly and said, arrogant and brutishly, "That's my style." Before walking back to his log and sitting down.

I sighed and said, "It really is his style too… anyone else eager to go?"

A lot of blank faces met me, and a few crickets chirped their two cents in before I said, "Fine, my turn."

I walked over to the other side of the camp, drawing out Demonscar's glow as I did so, I drew it, and I stood in my ready pose, left hand in front of me, sword in the other back behind, my left leg out front, my right leg behind.

"go"

I jumped ten feet vertically before slamming into the ground with all of my force, causing a hole roughly a quarter the size of Moses' to appear. I swung Demonscar over my hand , and began twirling the handle on my wrist, spinning the blade as one might expect one to swing a rapier, then I spiced things up a little by adding some symbol magic. I had spent some time drawing out the necessary symbols for the next day's fight on my arms so I could take advantage of them, but I figured I could just draw them again, and I should put on a good show. I coupled the elemental base I had drawn with the completion symbol, and Demonscar burst into flames, not red, not blue, but brilliant white flame. Combustion at its most pure form, I swung it around wildly, random patterns emerging from the confines of my mind… combination blade techniques (High left, center thrust to low left swing leading into sweeping motion pulling back around under me forcing a jump over blade and channeling of momentum upwards to swing around to behind my back and switching hands, bringing forward to a thrusting motion but ducking out of it at the last second, spinning into a guarding parry stance before sweeping low and swinging high again.) as well as simple thrusts, slashes, and swings. again I coupled them, and this time a beam of lightning wrapped itself around the blade, fire dissipating instantly. The lightning was blue, and wrapped around several dozen times. I swung the blade at a tree, and a bolt flew off and hit it. I then dropped control over the elemental base and took control of the alignment base and the symbol of war. This made for an interesting spectacle of light and sound as a shell of light encompassed a dark construct I had created. The light of the cage shrunk and eventually vanished into a small puff of smoke as my energy amplified from the power of the symbol of war, which stole the energy of the being I defeated, temporarily boosting my own. I accessed the symbol of time next, speeding up my movement until I managed a fencer's bombardment technique (see Amy's critical finish in Soulcalibur 4). I Finished strong, triple backflipping five feet backwards and pulling off an advancing technique filled with flair, spinning my blade in my hand like a drill and swinging it in circles in front of and behind me, switching hands and spinning in circles so that it almost looked like a swords dance, but not quite. I stopped, nodded and bowed, breathing heavily. That took a toll on me, and I wondered if it would affect my ability to participate in the battle tomorrow, but I didn't mention anything.

I didn't notice how much of a pounding I took until I sat down, and the adrenaline and blood rush died down. I was sweating buckets, and I hadn't even worked that hard. Symbol magic takes a lot out of me, it always has. Considering not many people can do it however, I feel rather lucky to even be able to use it, so I guess I shouldn't complain. Locria shot me a worried look when I suddenly winced from a cramp and let out a gasp, but Mainad said, "Don't worry about him, he's had worse than this before."

I smiled at her and nodded as it was true, it was no big deal. I straightened up, wondering who worked up the courage to go after I did, and saw Enflare step forward, but didn't really pay attention to the flaming spectacle, preferring instead to look behind me into the trees.

I stared off into the distance for a moment and saw the faint silhouette's of a meowth and a swellow. The meowth was carrying something that glinted in the light of the fire and looked copper. The swellow was pecking at its head as it ran off into the forest, and I wondered to myself whether or not the meowth thought it was worth getting pecked in order to get the coin, or if it just felt like it wanted it but didn't deserve this. Either way, the meowth had to be hating life right now… or did it… I turned around and my mind instantly fell off of the idea of the meowth and swellow, instead turning to something else. Our bleakest hour…

I turned to Mainad and said, "You take over for a while, I'm tired."

Mainad nodded at me and said, "Sure thing.", patting me on the back, "You get your sleep. You're gonna need it."

I smiled and said, "Thanks, I will.", before patting him on the shoulder and walking off towards my tent. I unzipped it and clambered in.

/LATE NIGHT\\\\

Three hours later everyone had gone to sleep, but I was till awake. I couldn't sleep, not until I figured something out. Someone came up to my tent and I heard a quiet "thank you" muttered through the hemp of the wall. I unzipped my tent, not knowing who to expect, and suddenly received a great shock.

Mew was there, floating to the right of my tent. I leaned out, still fully dressed, and said, "what?"

Mew smiled, which looked rather odd, and telepathically said, "I thought you were asleep. May I come in?"

I nodded, and Mew floated inside my tent. I smiled and said, "Do you need anything?"

She nodded back and said, "A place to sleep for the night, and to be treated like an equal for once."

"Well,", I said, "You've just found both. Lay down anywhere. If you need someone to talk to, I haven't been able to sleep yet."

Mew smiled again, and I could feel something pulling at the back of my mind, almost begging me to do something, but I couldn't tell what.

Mew looked troubled for a moment and said, "What is it?"

I shrugged and lied, "I don't know. I just had a horrible feeling something terrible is going to happen tomorrow."

Mew sensed the lie and said, "No, you are being psychically called, I can feel it in your mind.

"Okay," I said, really annoyed "That's it."

I tapped my arm and drew out my remaining spellsymbol, the ward.

All psychic probing of my mind instantly ceased, which seemed to shock Mew, who said, "How did you-"

"I'm a Spellsymbolist." I replied, "I magically blocked off my mind. So, I'm guessing taking down that tower was what you requested of us?"

"What?" She asked, obviously confused, "I asked you to do something?"

"Well, didn't-" I began, but stopped, realizing why she didn't remember, "Oh… you're the past Mew…"

She looked confused, so I clarified, giving the exact same explanation I gave Ark in the morning.

She looked shocked, and obviously didn't believe me. I dropped my mental ward and said, "Okay, check my memories. They're there."

Mew looked a little worried but calmly said, "Okay… that was definitely me… but… how?"

I bubbled thoughts of all of the memories I had of the future to the surface of my mind and said, "Send these to Celebi or Dialga. They'll send you the time period."

She closed her eyes for a moment. I waited patiently for about a minute before shaking her back awake, knowing something had gone wrong. She opened her eyes and said, "So... so much pain…"

I opened my eyes wide and said, "What is it?"

"War." She said, composure regained once again, "Bloody, bloody war."

I shook my head, saddened by the news, but not entirely shocked. "I knew it." I said, a hardened expression on my face, "Let me guess-"

"No." Mew said, "I can't reveal."

"Oh, okay…" I said, disheartened, "But the rumors were true."

A flash of bright white light lit up the night, and thunder rumbled throughout the tent before I said, "Would you like something to drink? It'll help us get our minds off of the war."

Mew looked upset, but still nodded yes, "Tea please…"

"Of course." I said, grabbing two packets of my special blend, which is made of ground fire flower, dried apple slices, mint leaf, and Phyranean fern leaf from the planet Sylvain 4, on the verge of the third star from Hyrule (Transuniversal measurements are always calculated from Hyrule, the first known human kingdom.). It was designed to have a bitter and sweet overtone and a spicy, tangy undertone and aftertaste. I only had three packets left, but I didn't really care about conserving them at the moment You know… even in the Transuniversal era you are still revered as one of the most powerful deities."

Mew looked up at that, apparently liking the sound of it, "Really?"

"Yeah!" I said, "You're considered a rank X major deity, one of the five. There's no rank above X."

"Wow!" She said. You could practically see the stars in her eyes, as the news cheered her up quite a bit.

Rain began to fall, and the tent began to make pitter pattering sounds. Suddenly, someone was rapping at the front of my tent with a hand,

I motioned to Mew to get down, then moved over to the front of the tent and unzipped it. Locria was standing there, rain reflecting off of a small shield she was projecting. "Locria," I said, "There had better be a fairly good reason for this."

"My tent leaks." She said, "May I come in?"

I sighed and said, "Okay, come on in Locria."

She entered, and after I zipped the tent back up, I winked at Mew.

She popped up from under my sleeping bag, saying, "Sure, join the party."

Locria jumped up, hitting her head on the top of the tent from the shock of seeing Mew all of a sudden like that. I laughed hard enough that I fell over, and unfortunately knocked over a cup of water I had set out to help me sleep, drenching one of the two sleeping bags and my face, which made me laugh even harder. Mew lightly giggled until I fell over, then she laughed. We all giggled like insane fools for about a minute before I realized that now I only had one bag for three people, two of which were female. I gave a nervous chuckle before drawing Demonscar, laying it flat over my legs like a full range stove top, taking out three cups, filling them with water and laying them flat on Demonscar, which I noticed Mew took an interest in. I took my hand and said, "Locria, can you grab me my pen from the bag. Top pocket."

She did as I asked, saying, "Here you go, now, what are you doing?"

"Making tea." I replied.

I drew the elemental base on my hand and drew right on top of it the completer, and I activated it immediately, catching my hand on fire, causing Mew to gasp, and Locria to smile.

I put it directly to the bottom of the sword and evenly heated all three cups until they steamed, then I said, "hand me those pouches over there."

Mew saw where that was headed, telekinetically picking up the bags and putting one in each cup.

Immediately they mixed in, causing the tea to smell strongly of burning foliage. I handed one to Locria, and Mew got her own, so I said, "May your minds be ever sharp, and your bodies linger until you wind up dead."

Locria smiled, "-And may your swings never miss."

Mew finished, "-And may I come with you tomorrow."

It was not a question. She had made up her mind, and I knew there was nothing I could do even if I wanted to. Locria and I just stared at Mew for making such a kindhearted gesture. I may have been surprised by the offer, but I was in no position to refuse the help that was offered in the form of Mew helping us. "Sure" I said, "We could use the help.". I may have been calm on the outside, but my heart was racing. If Mew helped us, our chances would improve from slimmer to slim, maybe even to normal. My heart was jumping for joy in my heart, and my mind raced with the possibility of victory, and the chance of survival, and making it back…

I said, "So… who sleeps where, because I am NOT sharing a bag with you two."

The two of them looked at each other, smiling deviously.

"Oh, no" I said, "Not gonna happen. You can just drop whatever it is you're planning right now."

A two minutes later, I was lying down in my sleeping bag, Mew in front of my chest, and Locria behind me, all in the same bag. "Sonuvabitch." I said as I drifted off into one of the most comfortable sleeps I, surprisingly, ever had in my life. It was probably because I had a pink fluffball snuggled up against my chest and someone giving off heat behind me.

Authors comment:

HOLY SHIT… IS THIS NOT THE HUGEST CHAPTER EVER?? IT IS AS LARGE AS MOST ONESHOTS AND IT ONLY DESCRIBES A SINGLE DAY!!

J.C. Onyx : Thanks for hanging in there. You're a real pal.

Kath : If you are still reading this, this is why I haven't updated in a while… again, I apologize.

Twilight : My newest fan. I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long.

IT'S FINALLY DONE! EVERYONE COME AND LOOK BEFORE MY HEAD EXPLODES AND THERE IS TRULY NO MORE!

R AND FUCKING R PLEASE!!


	7. Chapter 6: The Tower

Chapter 6: The Tower.

Pre-Authors Comment: This story is about to change. Majorly. After this chapter, you will understand.

--

A chilly breeze blew through the small opening created as someone had opened the front of my tent. I looked out from underneath my blanket, but was still momentarily blinded by the sun, before I finally made out the silhouette of Mainad standing in the tent.

"Okay," He said both jokingly and shocked sounding, "What's going on in here?"

I thought for a second before remembering what had happened the previous night. Looking around behind me, I saw the top of Locria's head, just visible above the blanket. In front of me lay Mew, whom I had held in my arms like I was hugging some sort of soft pillow… that was hugging me back. Regaining my senses, I began to get nerve ending sensations from all over my body, and I felt Locria pressed up against my back, which, admittedly, was a rather awkward situation, not that I cared all that much. My mind was still trying to wake up, so I nonchalantly said, "Can you come back in about five minutes?"

"Oh, sure. Let me just pencil that in to the-" Mainad began in an annoyed sarcastic tone before I killed his speech with one of my own

"Look, Mainad. You know me. I know you. Would I do that to someone I only know as well as Locria." I replied, stretching and sitting up, exposing Mew to the morning.

"… is that?" Mainad said, looking slightly confused and putting his hand to his head and shaking it, "Never mind."

I said, "Yes, and again, it's not what you think."

"O.K.," Mainad said, "I believe you. There's no way you were doing anything with Mew."

'And Locria?" I asked, just to make sure.

Mainad smiled, jokingly saying, "I dunno…"

I stood up, lightly punching him in the arm. "C'mon Mainad," I said in a sarcastic manner, "I'm still dressed. Now do you believe me?"

"Okay, I believe you." Mainad said, laughing, "But why not mess with you some?"

I smacked him and we laughed, waking Mew. Mew did not take kindly to not knowing what Mainad was, and recoiled, asking, "Who are you? What are you!?"

I said, "Mew, this is my best friend, Mainad. He's a yoshi. They aren't from this universe."

Mainad extended a hand, incidentally it was the EVAPS. Mew looked a bit surprised, but shook it, thinking to me, _'What is that on his arm?'_

I bubbled thoughts of the EVAPS origins and powers to mind, as well as the attachment process.

Mew thought, _'…Your little group has a really sad history…'_

I mentally agreed and said, "Hey, I know! Let's get some breakfast. Mew, will you be eating?"

"I make a point of doing whatever everyone else does when I roam around." Mew said, smiling, _'Your history makes me want to cry. There is nothing worse than the way you've had to live'_

I took my pen and drew the completer on the back of my hand, something I had done so many times I was able to draw and activate it without even Mainad noticing. _'I don't think so. We've gotten by well.' _I thought to mew.

She just looked at me. She floated up from the ground and thought, _'you really are different… huh…'_

I smiled to her, following Mainad as he walked out of the tent and into the blinding sunlight. Squinting momentarily, I looked around to see blurry images everyone standing around talking as my eyes watered up for a moment. I regained my sight and saw everyone staring at me, as though they were waiting for what to do. Mew floated out behind me, and everyone's vision instantly shifted off of me and onto her. Murmured, "Mew?", "What the?", and "Okaaaay…"s happened for a moment but then died off, because Locria walked out. Kind of awkward, I guess… I just smiled and said, "Well?"

They all just stood there for a (rather long) moment, before Moses and Olevov just burst out laughing and Moses said, "What- Ha Ha! –the hell happened- Ha!!! –Last night!"

I sighed and said, "It's a long story. It's no _**big**_ deal though."

Everyone sighed out a breath of relief and relaxed a little, sitting down, almost chuckling with relief. Moses and Olevov stopped laughing after a few seconds. "You guys…" I said, joking, "Are so immature."

A mixture of nervous laughter and muttered speech met that comment. "We make for the tower. Shall we go now?" Mainad asked.

Olevov said, "Hold on, what about Mew?"

"What about me?" Mew said, "Are we going or not?"

Olevov and the rest of them just looked stunned. "WHAT?" They all said in unison.

"You heard me. Stop being so taken aback. Every one of you is most likely at least equal to my power outside of the Legendary Council." Mew said.

"What?" I said, for this surprised me, and I decided to take it as a compliment.

"Outside of the Legendary Council, which is where we consult each other, I have the equivalent power of a league registered level 70." Mew stated.

"- _Any_way, I'd like some breakfast before we go." Mainad interrupted, obviously an attempt at breaking the tension, which seemed to work, "After all-"

Plats, Moses, Olevov and I all interjected sarcastically, "You're a yoshi."

A quick breakfast of bacon and eggs later and we were ready to go…

Everyone looked relieved that the tension of the morning was finally over, and started to pack up before Mainad said, "Travel light, as I'd bet we are coming right back here."

A muffled somber, "yes" was issued in almost unison, and I dropped everything but my sword, two vials of red potion, and a small pouch of money in case of tolls.

We began to walk towards the desert, as Olevov had to conserve his energy to maintain the bubble later on.

We walked through the forest, over a small grassy plain and into the mountains by noon.

As we were crossing over the mountains, a thought struck me, and I signaled over to mew, who was floating over my head, to come down and talk.

"Hey, Mew, why did you even come to my tent last night, and what was that muffled 'thank you' for?" I said, raising an eyebrow and not breaking my pace.

"Actually," Mew said, leaning in and whispering, "I was sent to investigate why there were strange goings on in the area, and I was thanking Arceus that whoever was making those explosions was asleep."

"Ahh, now it makes sense," I said, "It didn't seem likely to me that you just decided to pop in like that."

"Well," Mew said, chuckling and grinning nervously and scratching her head, "I've never been much of a liar…"

I smiled and said, "Well, it's not common that someone like you lies anyway…"

"True," Mew said, nervous smile becoming more of a joyous one, "Thanks for understanding my lie."

"Hey, it's no big deal." I said, "You'll get no complaints here if you decide to pop in."

"Thank you!" Mew replied, grinning and hugging my shoulder before flying back up above my head.

We finished crossing the mountains, and made our way into the desert, which was surprisingly cool, and to the obelisk tower by early evening, around 5-6 o'clock.

We arrived at the base of the tower, and my mind was racing with all of the possibilities that arose with this battle. Hell, I didn't even know if it was feasible for me to win this one, or even if I did, whether or not it would even matter, due to history saying that these people won. All I knew was that I had to try.

Plats flew up and said, "Let's go. No need to wait unless you need something."

I shook my head, saying, "No. Let's do this thing." before signaling to Mainad, who signaled Olevov.

Olevov swung his staff in a circle, until, in unison, we floated skyward. About two-thousand feet up, I saw something very disturbing, and by disturbing, I mean threatening. Skarmory were circling the tower, and they were being ridden by people shrouded like the one who caused the building to explode. It was hard to accurately judge how many there were, but my guess was five. "Get prepared." I said somewhat quietly.

Suddenly, one of the Skarmory started to glow… then another joined it, and again, another…

"Oh my GOD!!!" I yelled when I realized what was going on, "Locria! Mew! We need protection, NOW!!!"

Locria and mew threw up shields, but I knew it was too late. I jumped sideways out of the way as a Sky Attack rocketed past me. I felt the heat, and the rush of conflagrating hot air sent me spinning, but I landed on my feet, shaken but okay. Moses wasn't so lucky, and he was sent spiraling into another of the same attack, receiving a smash hit to both his front and rear. He recovered, picking himself up off the ground with his right arm and managing to stand, just in time for Locria and Mew's small psychic shield to be completely shattered by three simultaneous sky attacks from all angles. Mew and Locria would have been done for, but Mainad leapt into the fray. The EVAPS glowing bright blue and curled into a fist, pulled backwards. Leaping in at a speed equal to that of the sky attacks, he brought his fist forward, and bright blue flames encircled it. As the skarmory were about to converge on Locria and Mew, he used his spare hand to magically push them out of the way, and the EVAPS delivered a lethal rushing punch to the heads of all three charging skarmory, sending them careening downwards at extremely high speed with a sickening crunch as steel crushed underneath the power of magic and might combined, their riders with them. The other two skarmory circled back around for another shot at it, one of which never got the chance, as Plats appeared directly behind it and melee sliced in-between metal plates with his eye ring (making it fountain blood from a major artery as it fell), and vanishing instantly. Moses exacted his revenge for the previous hits on the last one, and I got to feel completely useless in that fight as he swung his hammer upward and into its neck, denting a plate. He brought it down on top of its head, frontflipped, smacking it again in the back of the head and catching the end of the hammer on the base of the head plate, and swung it into the tower, knocking it out. It too fell, but the rider did not, for he was implanted into the side of the tower, a bloody mess upon an otherwise pure yellowish brown stone wall. At this moment I realized that I had forgotten to redraw my symbols. "Shit…" I muttered under my breath.

We reached the top of the tower without further incident, and we set down on top of it.

The tower's top was made of white marble, flecked with yellowed spots, about fifty feet forom one end to the other, and had eight octagonal pillars, around 3 feet in diameter and jutting further out of the atmosphere of the small planet.

It was FREEZING. Olevov had managed to make it barely livable conditions for about 25 minutes, as in, -20 degrees Fahrenheit, just enough oxygen to sustain us at once, assuming the enemy would do the same thing. "Come out and face us! We'll end this here and now!" I yelled, and as soon as I had, something I had never expected to see materialized in a swirl of dark red smoke, atom by atom, in roughly five seconds. It was a robot, no, wait… A Reploid! He had black metal pauldrons that stuck straight out and had silver trim. His body was white silver, except for the gauntlets, which were the same black as the pauldrons. He had very spiky 'hair', with four points in front and three in back sticking straight up, in between which there were two side points and in the very front a few strands hung in his face and off to the side. His head had an open top helmet on it that had a golden circlet around his brow and a black armored part in front of and behind his face. His feet were black with the same silver trim lining the base as the pauldrons. He had a massive sword (roughly the size of the buster sword from FFVII) strapped to his back, without a strap (probably magnetically sealed). This mystery reploid was the cause of all of this! He had been manipulating Suicune and all of us behind the scenes in order to suit his own goals, and eventually in an attempt to conquer Jhoto! Anger flared inside me and Demonscar pulsed bright blue for an instant as my mind turned blank and all I saw was red. I calmed down a second later, at least enough to growl out through gritted teeth, "Who are you."

"I… am Comet." Came the reply, through an equally angry sounding voice, "And you, should not be here."

I smirked, chuckling quietly before saying, "Look who's talking. We wound up in this time on accident. What's your story?"

"I was an experimental prototype in jumpgate technology. I was sent here due to a breakdown in my programming. I am no longer under anyone's control. You will fall, and I will not lose to you!" Comet yelled, and as he did, three pokémon appeared, an Espeon, a Mawile, and Suicune.

"What the Hell? Glaze?" Enflare said, "What's wrong with you?"

"THAT'S Glaze?" Mainad said, obviously wondering "Isn't she supposed to be akin to you?"

"It doesn't matter. Look." I said, pointing at Comet, noting two pokéballs and a master ball on his side, "He's in control. Kill him."

Comet laughed at that. Not just a chuckle, full on maniacal laughter. "You want to fight? Are you kidding me?" He said, waiting a few seconds before saying, "Okay. If that is your wish, I will destroy you."

I drew Demonscar (which was glowing), Mainad raised the EVAPS, Froth spun his hands in circles, Moses flipped his hammer in his hand, Plats vanished, Enflare charged something flaming in her mouth, Skyknight spread her wings, Ark's claws started to shine, Oneshot's paws glowed blue, Mew floated up, Locria twirled her scythe, Z3 crouched, and then the enemy got ready.

Glaze stepped forward and smirked, saying, "Hello…"

The espeon put up a shimmering barrier around itself, saying nothing.

Suicune charged a blue ball of energy in his mouth, and Comet just smirked and raised his gun-arm, charging a shot.

I leapt to the side, dodging Comet's shot, and the battle began. I slashed downwards towards Comet immediately, but missed and stumbled forwards as he dodged to the side, bringing his gun crashing down into my back. Comet held his gun to the back of my head, and it looked like the end for me, but Ark came out of nowhere, shoulder-ramming him off of me. I climbed to my feet and saw Z3 and Skyknight defending Olevov from psychic disks, deflecting every one with vines or wings. The Espeon was sitting in front of them, shaking its head and conjuring the disks. I jumped to my feet and looked of to my left, where I saw Comet pummeling Ark's stomach with his gun and fist, Ark was spitting blood and retreating under a hail of blows. I ran up to them and jumped as I did so, curling into a ball and facing the opposite direction, kicking outwards as I approached, blasting Comet into one of the pillars reaching heavenward from the top of the tower. I saw my chance, and only vaguely heard Ark thank me as the Master ball fell off of Comet's belt. I ran, dodging several crossfire attacks as I went, before finally being knocked over by a shaking in the ground, Glaze jumped on my back, and, with a painful stomp, unleashed another earthquake attack on my back. I couldn't feel my legs, and Glaze smiled and hopped off of me, thinking I was done for, but I reached into my pack and grabbed both of the vials of red potion. I chugged them down and stood up, yelling, "Hey, Glaze! This isn't over, now get back here!"

Glaze turned, frowning, and said, "How are you-?"

"Alive?" I coldly finished for her, showing her the two vials of red potion, "No such luck."

"What is this?" She asked, sneering, "Magic?"

"In a sense." I replied, once again coldly, before hilt ramming her to the face.

She fell over and bled from the nose as I stood up and looked back at Comet, who had just thrown Froth to the ground, bleeding from his right eye and cut all over his left side. Comet had drawn a blade and was cornering Enflare. I charged, but Plats got there first, making Enflare intangible just as the sword was about to swing through her head. I came anyway, but was blasted off to the side by Suicune, who placed himself on top of me and charged up another blast, but I was ready for him, and I had anticipated his tactic, kneeing upward into his gut and flipping him head over heels into the pillar behind me, flipping off the ground backwards, where I landed on and pinned him, using him as a stand to push off of the pillar and slide across the ground of the tower towards Comet. I jumped off of him, using his legs as pushing points and flying towards Comet, blade in front of me. There was no way he saw me, but he still managed to leap backwards and land on top of me. He stomped on my back, which hurt, but missed my spine, before I grabbed his legs and threw him to the ground beside me, climbing on top of him and wrestling hand to hand. Demonscar fell from my grasp, but its glow still worked, as I was soul linked to it. We traded blows for about a minute before he finally got a good shot in on my stomach with his knee, and I gasped in pain as he flung me off of him with his right hand while picking up his sword with his left. I grabbed Demonscar and steeled myself against another attack got ready when something VERY unexpected happened.

Z3 came out of nowhere and vine whipped the master ball off of Comet's belt. Glaze jumped for it, but Ark smashed her back down. Skyknight dove out of the highest point on the field of battle and cracked the Master ball in half with a Steel Wing.

"ROOOOOAAAAAAAARRRR!!!"

Suicune, now free of Comet's control, turned and fired his charged hyper beam at the shocked reploid, launching him over to the edge of the tower. Comet looked calm, and a bit amused. "What are you gonna do? Kill me? Make me a martyr?" He laughed, staring death in the face, "I know your type. You won't do it."

Suicune growled and gritted his teeth, "No… but you WILL admit defeat!"

Comet smirked his nasty grin and said, "No."

Suicune said nothing, coiling backwards, "Very well then. You have made your choice."

Comet rolled his eyes and said, "Spare me the speech and do what you're gonna do please."

With a roar, Suicune leapt forward, tackling Comet headfirst off of the tower and winking out of the dimension. However, by doing so, he had left traces of his spell. Olevov, Locria, and Mew realized in an instant that there was only one thing to do, and rushed forward, their eyes glinting at the same time.

A swirling vortex of pitch black and formless energy, streaked with red lightning and held open by a thin translucent purple wall enveloped the top of the tower.

I blacked out, knowing what had happened, and really glad to have been able to… Finally… Return to my time.

----

AC:

I told you so.

---

P.S.

Happy Halloween.


	8. Chapter 7: Aftermath

Chapter 7: Aftermath…

Authors Pre-Comment: Diamond is worth almost nothing in this story as most deep space meteors are highly compressed and made of carbon. (most of the deep space meteors are diamond in other words). Also, 'Phyranean', is short for Phyranean clover fungus, which is an illegal drug grown on Sylvain II and III.

--

I awoke on the cold stone ground. My mind was reeling from the events of the previous night as I struggled to stand up through all of the lightheadedness that overtook me. I managed to crawl up into a kneeling position before toppling over, face first, onto something soft and scaly. He awoke with a start and jumped up, immediately alert, before Mainad said, "GAH! Who just fell on my tail!?"

"That would be me." I groaned out, holding out my hand, "Mind giving me a hand up?"

He helped me up, and a light shone in the corner, illuminating the room. Olevov was the source, and he began to look around. I did the same, and noticed that we were…

"Home" I sighed out, grinning, "These are the tempest ruins from where we came."

The ruins had a roughly hewn circular stone wall, or at least this room did. Most of the outside were finely cut marble or solid diamond. It was a speckled yellow color, built from limestone, and the ceiling was about 20 feet up. In the center there was a pedestal wide enough for three people to stand shoulder to shoulder comfortably. There was a small slice in the center of it, as well as a small keypad inset into the stone of the side. I looked around at who made it through the portal. Everyone had made it, even Glaze and the Espeon. The floor was marble, and therefore looked different than the walls. Ark was sprawled against the far wall unconscious with a huge bruise right on his stomach, and Locria seemed to be in pain, but other than that we were fine.

"Shit…" Ark faintly said, his eyes creaking open, "That was a wild ride…"

Turning back around, I noticed Mainad and Olevov staring at me, and said, "Let's wake the others…"

We did just that, to everyone but Ark anyway. Most of this was uneventful enough to not recount, but when Locria was dragged, metaphorically kicking and screaming, back into the land of the living, she took one look at Ark and said, "Holy… What happened to him?"

I looked at Ark one more time and he looked back up at me while Locria healed his wounds, a contented smirk on his face, saying in a victorious tone, "We did it… didn't we?"

"Yeah." I said with a curt nod and a smirk, "We did."

Also, when we woke Glaze, she groaned and rolled over on her side, cradling her head, before she sat up, and with a surprised look, said, "Oh my god! I am sooo sorry! How's your back?", and when we woke the Espeon, she introduced herself as Silva, then smiled up and said, "You don't know how much I thank you for the assistance…"

When Mew awoke, she immediately said goodbye and vanished, before reappearing before our eyes. Plats slapped his forehead and sighed when Moses said, "Why didn't she leave?"

Mew smiled down at him and said, "I've only been gone a few seconds… wow."

Olevov, who was leaning on Locria by the door on the opposite side of the room, annoyed sounding, said, "She got Celebi or Dialga to send her back. She waited a hundred and fifty or so years and came back, pushed you through the portal, waited a few days, and met us here, get it?"

Mew looked directly at me after that and said, "That aside, I think _you_ should come with me."

"Me?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "Uh, okay, I guess…"

"Hey!" Olevov shouted, "Why him?"

"Who wants to know?." She jokingly said, vanishing.

A few seconds later she thought to me, _'Whoops, here, you can't teleport can you?'_

I was suspended in a black… well, I suppose you'd have to call it space.

"Whoa! This is strange." I said to Mew, looking around, "Where are we?"

"Every legendary on the council has the right to a sealed room within the dimension; I just never got around to decorating it. Any thought of mine becomes reality here." She responded.

"Can you create a floor and some gravity? Please? This is really disconcerting." I asked and said.

She did as I asked, and I landed lightly on a soft, invisible ground. "That better?"

"Yes, thank you." I answered, liking the things I was used to having being here. "So, how've you been?"

She giggled a little and said, "I've been okay… you know, I've never said that to someone I hadn't seen for a hundred and fifty years, let alone a human."

Yeah. So, is there anything you need from me? Or is this truly just to chat?" I inquired, relaxing a little.

"Well, a little of both." She admitted, "I know you don't know what happened, but it's about a month after you went through the portal backwards now."

"Oh! So we are in the future a little bit, even for us!" I responded jokingly.

Mew said, "I wish I could be as lighthearted about this as you are. Remember those reports of growing armies? The ones you heard so many times?"

"Yeah," I said, dreading where this was going, and knowing full well where it was, but not able to be entirely sure, "So…"

"It's happened." She said, "The first attack has been made, and Beta 64, the strange planet that seems the origin of the Tempest has been taken by the movement."

"Movement… So, I did guess right." I said, sighing, "Cropepsis is insane." I turned and saw the overpowering visage of the great guardian of the seas, Lugia.

"HOLY-" I began, but was cut off.

"You have done a great service to us. Stopping that movement prevented the fall of Hoenn, and the eventual extinction of several species of pokémon, such as tailow and magikarp." Lugia responded, "And Suicune sends his deepest gratitude and regrets that he could not be here to thank you personal-" He began to finish but couldn't, because Suicune came out of nowhere, smiling.

"Am I too late to send my deepest gratitude myself?" He asked, looking from me, to Lugia, to Mew, and back again, "Well? C'mon, say something!"

Mew giggled and said, "Just missed it.", holding her paws up and inch apart from each other.

"Ouch…" He said, chuckling, "Well, still a good thing to have sent either way. My thanks to you."

I smirked and said, "No problem. I always try to do the right thing."

"We've noticed. Actually, we were wondering if you might consider joining the TUA in the war effort." Lugia said, total seriousness in his voice.

"…" I said nothing. I knew that Cropepsis's army was a force to be reckoned with, and to tell you the truth, I was a little afraid of what they might do. I'd seen them over the years, lurking in the slums, smirking in the gloomy atmosphere they helped to create. Delighting in ruining other peoples days. A trip here, a shove there. I, in my infinite quest to know as much as I could, managed to attend one of his lectures, where he glorified the strong, condemned the weak, and presented several technologies I had never seen before, one of which was designed to kill a man without anyone noticing by causing his spine to dissolve slowly. I shuddered as I recalled his 'demonstration', done on a 35 year old man. A man who will never walk or use his hands again. Luckily, the lecture was broken up by a raid squadron before he actually died. The captain of the Xenoreligious affairs dept. arrived on scene and shot everyone there who did not denounce Cropepsis's cause. I was lucky enough to have gotten out before he showed up, or else I would have been placed under surveillance for quite a while. After that, I kept hearing reports of them growing in numbers, and now they have declared war. "Which universes are divided then?"

"They control one planet in all 20 major ones, two in some, and they still have no sway in the 5 lower population ones." Mew answered,

Suicune sighed and said, "I forgot. I came bearing horrid news. Hyrule, the entire Sylvain system, and Rogrigian have fallen to them."

"WHAT!?" I shouted, alarmed at the notion, "Hyrule!? That was where the strongest weapons depot was!"

"That's just speculation, am I correct?" Suicune said, leaning his head down to meet my gaze as opposed to floating above it, "How can you be sure?"

"There is virtually no strategic value in capturing that planet. Resources are low, energy generation is down the tube since the loss of the Wind Waker to the ides of time, and the ravaging areas of the deserts are a likely place to store something of strategic importance. The races that lived there have virtually abandoned the planet, so the military would have an easy time storing things there. I have a strong hunch that this is not going to bode well for the TUA." I said, a concerned and angry expression on my face, "I will do as you ask, but I need a ride for me and my men back to TUA HQ in the border-universe."

Smirking, Mew giggled, shot a glance at Lugia, and said, "I told you so."

Lugia sighed and smiled, saying, "A teleport can be arranged. I guess Mew wasn't kidding when she said you would do the right thing."

I smiled and said, "I pride myself on that."

I was instantly teleported back to the others, who all asked what happened. After I filled them in, we sat there, awaiting transport.

"You guys ready?" Came Mew's voice from behind me.

"As we'll ever be." Mainad called out.

We were NOT ready.

We arrived instantly at the gate to the border universe. To those of you who have never seen a universal portal, it looks like a massive (or not so massive), flat, blue or green wall of endlessly swirling cake frosting. The one before us was blue, massive, and had a guard to either side, both of whom were wearing diamond fiber chain vests, black special unit armor which consisted of padded pants made of magically hardened wool and layered on the inside with diamond fiber again, and a portable storage space on the wrist of the arm, as well as a black jacket, they wore gloves and they had helmets, round and black, with a green visor that covered their face, and a transceiver box wired into the side.

We approached the customs line, which had ten families in it. While we waited, Olevov decided to get us all snacks. I watched him go, and then realized that he had no money, none of us did but me. I only had enough for the fee to get back. Mainad realized this as well, and jumped over the railing to go after him, but ran headlong into an old woman, who, being the jerk she was, decided to make a scene. Moses leapt over to try to help him out when the Guard came over to see what the commotion was, but the guard just said, "Turn around, you're under arrest."

Olevov then showed up in handcuffs for ordering something he couldn't pay for than trying to leave from a place that only prepares food when you want it, so, if you order it, you are wasting their materials, so you better be able to pay for it. The officer eyed Ark curiously as he flipped a coin and watched the scene, then tried to arrest him for no reason, and I drew the line there. While the officer tried to step over the bar separating us, I gave him a two handed shove and he fell onto his back. Ark burst out laughing at that. The Guard leaned down to help the officer off the ground, and while he did the others rejoined us in the line, and we pushed our way out of sight and lost the guard and officer in the crowd.

Eventually we got through customs and into the gate, but that was a hilarious day. It seems like something a high school would do a play about, or maybe something someone could use to become inspired to write a song. Oh, who am I kidding, it was whimsical and delirious and overall funny. I laughed as we went through the portal, and then, we got serious…

--

I apologize for the fault in the swiftness when finishing chapter 5. Those responsible have been sacked.

I apologize for the fault in the swiftness when finishing chapter 6. Those responsible for sacking the people for faulting chapter 5, have been sacked.

I apologize for the fault in the swiftness when finishing this chapter. I would like it to be known that I am now officially sacking myself. This means that I will have to stick a pillowcase on my head and sit in 92 degree heat in a sweater and three pairs of sweatpants until I finish chapter 8.

Thank you to my fans, friends and family – You owe this chapter to Metallica and insomnia.

--Zephyter0--


	9. Chapter 8: So it begins

Chapter 8: so it begins...

Pre comment: This is amazing. This area... I'm very proud of it.

Laughing, we walked through the portal. I was in the lead, and we came out on the far right of one of the four halls in a square that the 20 major portals that lined the outside and inside walls of the square, which was about 25000 yards by 25000 yards, with the portals evenly spaced and about 200 yards wide each, four portals were on each outside wall, and three were on each inside one about 500 yards away. The ceiling was about 2000 yards up, and there were so vastly many people here, it was mind boggling. You could probably say an entire planet's population came through here every hour. Anyone capable of it roamed the sky, and an incredible crowd of mostly human body mass was constantly shifting and flowing on the floors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you were good at navigating a crowd, you could probably get from one end of the floor to the other in about an hour. If you hugged a wall, you could half that. Every inch of the area was under constant surveillance, and nothing could get done without it being seen, recorded, and then captured.

Where there would be a portal in the middle of the far side of the inner wall, there was a set of massive double doors leading into an indoor marketplace, about 15000 x 10000, yards of course, criss-crossed with shops of all kinds. On the far side of that there is another set of HUGE double doors. Through these is a hallway branching into three directions, forward, left, and right. Down the left, it branches in two directions, left leading to diplomat housing and right leading to the lesser, one or two world universe portals, there were about ten of these. If you went straight instead of turning left, you ended up in the chamber of the senate. If you continued on past there, you hit the council of five, which consisted of the commander in chief of the TUA military, the TUA official head of the Magical arts, the head of covert operations of the TUA high command, The master of TUA policy and law, and the head of social events and public relations. Despite anything anyone said, these five men controlled everything in the TUA, because only a 60/40 majority in the senate could overturn any one of their decisions. During a time of war, however, the Commander in Chief of the TUA military, often just called the Grandmaster of the military, had the most influence, and therefore power. If you turned right, however, you would wind up having another two way split, left into the residential district, and right to the military district, complete with soldier barracks.

Ark whistled really long, "I'm impressed, this was hard to make."

"I actually read something on that once…" Olevov began, gazing up at a flock of birds flying directly over us as we made our way counter clockwise through the crowd and towards the other side of the commons, "Apparently it took seven hundred mages vastly more powerful than me seventeen days of virtually nonstop concentration to isolate a place in non-space and create this to end the anarchy of the pre TUA days."

""Well, however it was done, I'm impressed by it." Mainad said, smiling and running the EVAPS along a wall, "This is fucking massive."

"I can't believe how many humans I see; there were never this many back home!" Locria commented jokingly, stepping over a passed out drunken man on her right who was asleep against a wall, "I'm just amazed by the size of it as well, you're saying this was conjured, not built?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying." Olevov responded, flashing a toothy grin, "This was why I started to study magic myself."

"I can see why." Z3 responded, chiming in, "You might be able to do something like this one day."

"Yeah right!" I said, chuckling, "Olevov, do this? He doesn't have the concentration!"

Olevov shot me a look, Mainad chuckled, and Moses punched Olevov in the arm, saying, "Whatever, I'm sure he could do it if he tried, right?"

"You bet I could. One day I will, just to prove you wrong." He said, returning to his usual, cheerful self.

--

We walked for a solid hour, still talking, until we finally arrived at the military district.

--

We waked up to the enlistment office. It was a large, somewhat impressive looking building with a gothic looking face and a few steps leading up to a large iron door about halfway into the district itself. I walked up to it and said, "You all know the plan right? Anyone have any objections to joining, after hearing Cropepsis is, in fact, insane enough to attack the TUA?"

Nobody said anything, until Mainad said, "Some of us are going to die before this war is over. Whether from old age, or some other reason, I just know it. Either quit now or risk getting shot as a deserter."

Nobody said anything still for what felt like hours, until…

"…I can't handle it. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm sorry, I've had too much!" Skyknight cried out, bursting into tears, "I've battled my whole life, my father, my friends, I'm done!"

"That's why you have free will. You don't have to fight if you don't want to." I responded, "Anybody else?"

Froth, Enflare, Oneshot and Z3 all said, "Me."

I sighed, and Mainad facepalmed, before he said, "Look, we don't want to force you to fight. You've done more than we had the right to make you do already, and we won't keep you here."

I turned to Enflare and said, "Well… If you are sure… I guess this is goodbye."

Enflare frowned for a moment before saying, "Well, not really… I mean, I'll still be here when you get back."

"We'll keep in touch." I said to her, smiling, "Take care of yourself Enflare, go have your peace."

"I will." said Enflare, smiling, "You just try not to die Zephyter."

"Oh, trust me, I will." I smiled back.

Z3 turned to Locria and said, "Well, I'm gonna miss you Locria… I just wish we could have gotten to know each other better, you know, outside of life or death fights…"

"Me too, I'm sure we'll get that chance." She responded, smiling and pushing her hair to one side, "I trust you'll be here as well? No big plans right?"

"No plans." Z3 nodded and said.

Skyknight said a fond farewell to Glaze and Ark, as did Oneshot, Enflare, and Froth, before I walked into the building…

--

Three weeks later…

--

I was in the briefing room of the TUA light cruiser Romek, which was currently orbiting the sylvan planet of Hyrule. For those of you who do not know much about military classes of ships, here's the basic run-through. Civilian ships are the weakest, with an exceptional few. Then there's the frigate, the weakest military ship, followed by the light cruiser, heavy cruiser, and the dreadnaught. Alternate chains include the fighter, bombardier, blockade runner, flagships, space stations, and land vehicles, which you know most of. The TUA cruiser had three rear facing particle beam cannons, capable of accelerating a shot, generally metallic in nature, to .9999999x the speed of light (Guns in space), three forward facing plasma beam guns, outfitted to accept magical input, such as fire enhancements or electricity bolts, and two missile sots on the underbelly. It carried a total of 20 missiles and was painted TUA colors, silver and blue. It was V shaped, not too terribly large, but could comfortably hold about 300 people, and had a crew manifest of fifty. It was about time to start the fight. I was in the briefing room, getting my orders from the captain. The TUA, thankfully, did not enforce a soldier dress code, and had been kind enough to allow me to remain in command of my men, starting my off as a low rank fifth class infantryman, while they were sixth class. There were six classes of infantry before you hit officer, there were three classes of that, then commander, then captain, then Bastidor, then General. We had a few squabbles early on about the more immature side of being an actual soldier company, such as the group name. We settled on Endeavor company.

"So, here's the plan infant (infant is a common, slightly degrading, shorter term for infantryman). Your company is going to do covert ops for this mission. This will be the first wave of a stike to take back one of the founding planets of the TUA, Hyrule. The enemy has anti aircraft guns set up all over the vicinity of their bases, we could take them out from orbit, but they're shielded, and the shield is plasmoid in nature, not magical. We've traced the shielding signal for this particular base back to this building here. You will take three people with you and be dropped from orbit outside of the walls of the city Radion on the blindside of one of the watchtowers while we drop a diversionary small bomb or two to help keep them off you. Avoid the sentries. Find safe passage into the city by any means necessary where you will rendezvous with one of our agents in a bar called the Upp And Inn. He'll be playing chess. Choose to be white, he'll offer, and immediately try to move your queen to take his king. This will signal you are in. he's scouted the city and found the easiest way to infiltrate the building, preferably silently. I don't care how you do it, but find the shield control, and shut it down. Once the shield is gone, we'll blast the anti air to hell from orbit and land a few dozen snipers to lock up the area. From there, wait for more orders." My commander Koron bitterly said to me, indicating the places on the map where anti air, drop zones, pickup zones, movement, and the like existed, "We have twelve other areas like this one being taken down by groups like yours. I chose yours for this mission because you are the broadest skill ranged company we have not fortifying our borders or under other orders from higher up. Get this done, and you'll go far."

"Yes, sir" I responded, smiling, "No problem."

He lightened his tone and said, "You should go inform your men, and pick your team.

"I will." I responded again before walking out the door. I walked down a hallway to my right and to a deck jump teleport pad, going down towards Endeavor company quarters. I walked over to the speaker controls and pushed the button to broadcast to all of their rooms, saying, "Meet me in the conference room, now."

It was 2:00 in the afternoon by your standards, by ours, it was 2:00 aftermid. I will continue to use your system to not confuse people. I walked into the conference room to find them all already there, and waiting for orders. "Well…" I began, "Which three of you want to sneak around with me?"

"Why, may I ask?" Mainad chuckled back at me, "Would I want to sneak around?"

"Okay, count you out. We just got our first assignment, a silent and deadly strike at anti-air shield generators." I said, grinning, "And it looks to be an easy one."

"I'm in!" said Glaze from the back of the room, she sounded pumped, "I'm ready to go on the counteroffensive."

"Count me in too, I wanna get a piece of those cultist bastards." Ark cockily said, smirking and leaning against a wall.

Plats smiled down at me from the ceiling and said, "This is kind of my specialty, I'll do what I can."

"Alright," I responded, "We leave as soon as you're ready."

--

Ten minutes later we were ready to go. We walked to the interdeck teleporter pad and went down to the hangar. We walked up to the bay and saw what we were to be geared up in. I decided I needed to change into less obtrusive clothing to pull this mission off, so I walked over to the cue man and said, "I need about three more minutes, gotta change."

"Three minutes of the five you have?" He responded, smirking, "Just make it quick."

I ran into the nearest secluded area, behind the control tower, after grabbing a change for the more conspicuous parts of my outfit, and threw off my shirt, hat, and jacket, putting on a baseball cap, a green shirt, and my jacket back on. I left my clothes there, making a mental note of where they were, seeing as how nobody would go back there besides me ever anyway

I walked back out, walking down to the drop deck, to see Ark wearing camo slacks and a green long sleeved shirt, along with gloves that made his hands look human, but still in gloves, Glaze just wore a purple long sleeved shirt, and Plats, as can logically be expected, wore nothing.

Plats looked shocked for a moment, but said nothing as I walked in. The other two just thought I had changed clothes. The truth is, I hadn't actually changed my clothes (But I washed them), since I left home, at age 18, 9 years ago. This would be the first time anyone had seen me in anything else besides Mainad and anybody who knew me before I was 18. Ever. The clothes had been magically treated to always fit and never wear out, so why would I need anything else?

We chatted mildly until the doors were going to open in one minute, then put on the heat and pressure sealant wrist rings so as to survive the drop itself. For the landing, we had to use an ancient Hylian trick and a spell called feather-fall. We use feather fall to break the falling 100 feet from the ground, and roll when we hit to avoid damage, which only works in this universe really. Feather fall simply allows for a sudden stopping of momentum, but has to be used from at least 100 feet up. I grabbed a simple pistol as well, just in case, sticking it in my left back pocket and 12 bullets in my left front one, and I had resupplied myself with two additional vials of red potion, which were in my right pocket. I was prepared, Plats was prepared, Ark was prepared, and Glaze was prepared, we were ready to strike against the evil that surrounded us.

Five…

Four…

Three…

Two…

One…

DROP!

--

AC: Thus, the battle for Hyrule begins… Read and Review please. I like reviews, and I don't get many…

APRIL FOOLS IDEA: Tell your mother / someone who cares about you that you stepped on a tack and are bleeding. They'll rush over, and step on the tack you didn't, which you placed between where you are now standing and where the other person is before you entered the room. Good luck everyone, and happy April Fools Day.


	10. Chapter 9: The First strike Part I

Chapter 9: The first strike part I…

It was a long, long drop. As we fell, my eyes began to tear as the air streaking past us ever faster started to sting, just enough to be annoying, but not enough to actually hurt. Once we broke the atmosphere, the stinging passed and I smirked at how simple it had seemed, despite how many years of research and technology had been put into the rings we used. When we could barely see the ground through the lowest layer of cloud cover where we were to land, I took in the landscape. Though it was an abandoned, or close to, planet, the lush plant life culminated in a vast forest to the east… to the south I saw a medium sized lake, and a desert with a massive sandstorm sweeping up… To the north, a ridiculously high mountain, about four miles high, loomed over the town, the base of which was the landing point for us… To the west was a humongous, completely abandoned castle. From where we were, we could see the town easily. It was nestled in the crater of a meteor impact that had happened 40 years ago, obliterating the abandoned Kakariko town and dropping the global temperature 2 degrees, almost causing a mass extinction that would have killed off all of the life on the planet short of microbes. Plats looked down and squinted, his face froze in a look of horror for a moment, and he turned and shouted, "Oh shit! They've got a Ramoni tank!'

"What!?" I terrifiedly replied, tearing my eyes from the town as quickly as I could. A tank is nothing to laugh at, after all. It would probably roll right over us unharmed. After a few seconds of not seeing anything, I looked up to see Plats trying to suppress a giggle.

He kept giggling and pointed at me, saying, "You fell for that!"

I owned it, smiling and saying, "I sure did."

After a long, long freefall all the way to, and probably for a long time at, terminal velocity, we finally hit the breaking point for feather fall, and Plats said the final command word.

It felt as if someone had suddenly smacked me in the chest with a lead pipe, or maybe an elevator cable. The momentum from the fall suddenly broke, and I lurched forward for a moment, hitting a gigantic cushion in midair, only it wasn't soft. I could have sworn that my stomach dropped to my knees. I found myself falling at a much slower pace, however the ground was still rushing up at me. I tucked my shoulder and rolled as I hit the ground. I landed off balance, and instead, the momentum from the fall sent me horizontally spinning into a tree off to the right, stomach first. The city was surrounded by forest, and only dim sunlight lit the small clearing where we dropped. The trees were currently vibrant shades of yellow and red, and there was a songbird in the distance chirping for a mate. I groaned, my stomach aching, and me almost unscathed from a complete drop from orbit.

I turned and saw Plats float to rest at about two feet off the ground, as well as Ark and Glaze landing far more gracefully than I did, causing me to wince, not so much from shame, but from embarrassment. I picked myself up cautiously off the ground, adjusting my jacket and cap, and said, "Well? What's our cover story?"

Glaze breathed in deeply and happily, saying, "I'd be a little kid, but I guess that's not going to work with you two…"

"I'll just be invisible the whole time." Plats bluntly said, "There's no problem with that really."

"I've got it." Ark said, snapping his fingers, before smiling and looking at the human gloves he had on and saying, "God I've missed being able to do that…"

I smiled sympathetically, but said in a serious tone, "What did you figure out?"

"I'll be her uncle, escorting her to her mother's house on the far side of town-" He began, but I cut him off, saying, "No. Too risky. We don't know anyone in town. We're just gonna have to sneak in I suppose."

I flattened myself against the stone wall to the town, pulled out one of my bullets and signaled everyone to get flat across the wall to the right of the gate, behind me. It was a fortified city, with walls too high to climb easily. I threw the bullet with skill, landing it and making it go off with a bang in the bushes off to the left of the entrance. The guards at the entrance, who were wearing full dark steel platemail, and had inertial mage armor spells cast and ready, as well as carrying automatic rifles and claymores, exchanged glances before walking off into the bushes with an audible rustling and clanking. We pealed off, darting quickly in through the gate while they were distracted, and caught our first sight of the town from the inside. Stone brick buildings surrounded a large bronze fountain with a statue of a singing bard spouting the obviously contaminated water. The buildings were arranged in four poorly lit semicircles, with streets between the semi circles and pitch black alleyways between the buildings, which were all in a state of disrepair. A sun bleached sign, hanging crookedly on the front of a stone, two floor building with a balcony, labeling the Upp and Inn, was slightly to the left and in front of us, and there were several people dressed in assorted warm weather attire moving hastily about their business. The AA Battery loomed over the town menacingly. It was green, with visible coils for channeling the electromagnetic energy required to launch the plasma shots. It was resting on a tripod base, each base pillar the size of a building. The townsfolk seemed tortured by its presence, as if it choked the life out of the city. That and the guards, posted at almost every nonbusiness building entrance, made this town a miserable shell of what it should have been. I looked to Ark and said, "My fucking god… This is worse than I expected…"

Ark frowned, a look of hatred on his face, and adjusted his shirt, replying, "I've seen worse. This town will recover. More than can be said for Udion."

Glaze looked up at him and said, "Honestly Ark? You bring up the town we demolished…"

Plats replied, "Well, I'm glad those days are over, come, let's rent the room."

Ark, Glaze, Plats and I walked over to the Upp and Inn, and, after renting the rooms, I sat at a slightly damp table in the back, despite the bar being completely empty, awaiting the contact, while the rest of them settled in for the night. At about three AM the next morning (Exaggerating, only 1 AM… [We walked in at 8 PM]) a teenager in a chromatic green helmet with a spike on the front going straight up, wrapped almost entirely in a brown cloak, walked in. He walked right up to the table and sat down, sticking his feet up on the table, which were encased in green leg armor up to the knees, and had the stickout feet of a reploid. His cloak fell away at that point, revealing the other aspects of his armor, which was basically reploid in nature, with a few modifications, such as the gun cannon was enhanced with a Gemini crystal, allowing for a piercing magical shot to be fired, as well as the spiked right arm part, and a harmony crystal was inlaid in the chest, allowing for deflection of most blunt force damage. "I assume you are my contact." The reploid said nonchalantly, "I'm Travile, Reploid spy for your side. Been on the job around here for about 10 of my 15 years of life, and I am disillusioned with this job. So, in exchange for the information you seek, you're going to do me a favor, and buy me a fucking drink."

I frowned, annoyed, before leaning back and saying, "You're late, and you were supposed to be playing chess. What do you want?"

Travile smirked, "Get me off this planet. In short, take me with you. I'll join up with your company."

I smirked back and said, "It's done. Always glad to have another ally. Now, about that drink…"

We talked for about an hour, drinking three rounds me with Rocky wrenches (A blend of fire flower and an exotic grass called windweed), and him with spiderblood wine, before he finally spat out the info. "Okay, here's the deal." He spread a map of the town with several circles and lines, clearly indicating time frames and guard paths and stations, on the table and said, "You need to open up the door on the inside of the southern pillar. No guards ever have postings that would make you visible from that position. Inside, head up the stairs and into the body of the gun. Once there, simply rip the blue and green wires out from the control panel on the right. That'll disable it for a while, until someone thinks to bypass the system, or, if you want to go for total shutdown, and alert the town, you could always slice out the support cable in the room to the right of there. Slight risk, however, is that the gun will fall then, and may kill some innocent civilians. One way to minimize the damage would be to only cut one, so that it's pointed straight up, then cut the rest, and drop the gun segment onto the statue in the fountain. I hope you can silence guards, however, because there will be at least four in the gun."

"Thank you." I said, glad for the help, "Now, we both need rest, and I'm sure you'll need to be in good shape for the fight after the gun comes down."

"Agreed." He said, nodding to me and walking upstairs. I went upstairs myself to find that all the beds in the room we rented were taken. Glaze was sleeping in the one off to my left, the blanket covering all but her head and feet, and the bed sagged a little under her weight. Ark was straight ahead of me, in the bed on the far side of the room, completely covered, except for his ears. Plats was nowhere to be seen, so I guessed he was on the roof. I saw the ladder leading up there on my left, behind Glaze's bed, and went up there with him.

I crawled up on the shingles of the roof. Feeling the graininess of the lightly eroded rooftop was firm enough to support my weight, I moved all the way out and sat in a ball, my legs curled up to my chest and my arms huddled around them. I looked up into the sky and saw Hyrule's moon, much closer than most, silhouetting the AA gun and most of the town as the lightly cloudy sky sparkled with the fire of a million blazing stars. A chill suddenly struck the night air momentarily as a light breeze blew from the west, and I shivered. "What brings you out here?" Plats asked, "It's a dark and lonely night. As a ghost like being, I don't mind, but surely-"

"Not at all Plats…" I responded, smirking, "Hey, do you remember the circle incident on Sylvain 3? Before we ended up stuck in the past… before we… I… got us caught up in this?"

Plats floated over to my shoulder and set himself down on it, adjusting to make himself comfortable, before replying, "Yes, I do… I remember the Swifthides, and how the were unable to hold off the tanks at that battle we fought on the southern continent."

I shuddered again, but not from the cold, from the memory of the innocent civilian town that was blown to the ground. Evil… pure evil… the Rockside clan fighting with the tanks… They knew what they were doing. They were murdering people. In cold blood.

"Do you remember how we initially met?" He asked me, staring blankly into space, "Because I sure as hell do."

"I remember…" I said, thinking back, "I remember you were by a wall in an underground cave on Rainar 4… You were skeptical about one of the group we were both in's strategies, and refused to obey orders. So you were thrown out. You acted without malice, or even care, towards the matter, and later saved us all when our terrible plan blew up in our faces."

"I remember you were the most gung-ho guy in the group, and I remember you saved my ass three times while I was saving yours. You kept them off me, while I helped everyone else escape." He replied, looking at me.

"By the time you got to rescuing me, I was already down the hall and out of the building, only seconds before the explosion, and as you motored your way through the walls to get out, I pulled you through the cohesion field keeping you in phase, and we both got out as the whole damn place exploded." I responded, smiling.

"After the skirmish died down, I tracked down your group, and when I found you, I joined up…" He continued, looking back out over the town.

I finished for him with, "And we all ended up going through hell since."

Nothing more was said. Nothing more needed to be said. As I sat on the roof of the town which I knew was going to become a warzone the next day, I reflected on my little circle of friends, who, in true form, follow me through (and expect nothing more than) hell and to the ends of the multiverse. Each of us contending with his or her own demons, be they created by us or others, we forged onward in this multiverse. Having a sense of personal fear or anger made us strong. All of us have done at least one thing we weren't proud of. Hell, half of us used to destroy for evil organizations. In truth, the only bond that tied all of us together seemed to be that of universal friendship. Everyone in the group was friendly with everyone else if not downright clutching to each other for support. Our loyalty ran deep because we were bound by law of existence that stated that those beset with turmoil must band together to hold out against the darkness. I thought back to a children's rhyme I remembered, 'I shall see you in the glade, through which fate shall have its way, and all who come and rest and things, shall see the darkest ring of rings.'. It was, of course, a warning against the black ring syndrome, a disease that claimed millions of lives. I smiled at the way things seemed to work themselves out, before nudging Plats and gesturing to the way back to the room. He nodded, and I led the way back down.

--

AC: I had another problem with my laptop. I apologize. And, so it begins. R&R

--Zephyter0--


End file.
